essay on psychological approach

How to Write a Psychology Essay

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Before you write your essay, it’s important to analyse the task and understand exactly what the essay question is asking. Your lecturer may give you some advice – pay attention to this as it will help you plan your answer.

Next conduct preliminary reading based on your lecture notes. At this stage, it’s not crucial to have a robust understanding of key theories or studies, but you should at least have a general “gist” of the literature.

After reading, plan a response to the task. This plan could be in the form of a mind map, a summary table, or by writing a core statement (which encompasses the entire argument of your essay in just a few sentences).

After writing your plan, conduct supplementary reading, refine your plan, and make it more detailed.

It is tempting to skip these preliminary steps and write the first draft while reading at the same time. However, reading and planning will make the essay writing process easier, quicker, and ensure a higher quality essay is produced.

Components of a Good Essay

Now, let us look at what constitutes a good essay in psychology. There are a number of important features.

Global Structure – structure the material to allow for a logical sequence of ideas. Each paragraph / statement should follow sensibly from its predecessor. The essay should “flow”. The introduction, main body and conclusion should all be linked.
Each paragraph should comprise a main theme, which is illustrated and developed through a number of points (supported by evidence).
Knowledge and Understanding – recognize, recall, and show understanding of a range of scientific material that accurately reflects the main theoretical perspectives.
Critical Evaluation – arguments should be supported by appropriate evidence and/or theory from the literature. Evidence of independent thinking, insight, and evaluation of the evidence.
Quality of Written Communication – writing clearly and succinctly with appropriate use of paragraphs, spelling, and grammar. All sources are referenced accurately and in line with APA guidelines.

In the main body of the essay, every paragraph should demonstrate both knowledge and critical evaluation.

There should also be an appropriate balance between these two essay components. Try to aim for about a 60/40 split if possible.

Most students make the mistake of writing too much knowledge and not enough evaluation (which is the difficult bit).

It is best to structure your essay according to key themes. Themes are illustrated and developed through a number of points (supported by evidence).

Choose relevant points only, ones that most reveal the theme or help to make a convincing and interesting argument.

Knowledge and Understanding

Remember that an essay is simply a discussion / argument on paper. Don’t make the mistake of writing all the information you know regarding a particular topic.

You need to be concise, and clearly articulate your argument. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences.

Each paragraph should have a purpose / theme, and make a number of points – which need to be support by high quality evidence. Be clear why each point is is relevant to the argument. It would be useful at the beginning of each paragraph if you explicitly outlined the theme being discussed (.e.g. cognitive development, social development etc.).

Try not to overuse quotations in your essays. It is more appropriate to use original content to demonstrate your understanding.

Psychology is a science so you must support your ideas with evidence (not your own personal opinion). If you are discussing a theory or research study make sure you cite the source of the information.

Note this is not the author of a textbook you have read – but the original source / author(s) of the theory or research study.

For example:

Bowlby (1951) claimed that mothering is almost useless if delayed until after two and a half to three years and, for most children, if delayed till after 12 months, i.e. there is a critical period.

Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fullfil the next one, and so on.

As a general rule, make sure there is at least one citation (i.e. name of psychologist and date of publication) in each paragraph.

Remember to answer the essay question. Underline the keywords in the essay title. Don’t make the mistake of simply writing everything you know of a particular topic, be selective. Each paragraph in your essay should contribute to answering the essay question.

Critical Evaluation

In simple terms, this means outlining the strengths and limitations of a theory or research study.

There are many ways you can critically evaluate:

Methodological evaluation of research

Is the study valid / reliable ? Is the sample biased, or can we generalize the findings to other populations? What are the strengths and limitations of the method used and data obtained?

Be careful to ensure that any methodological criticisms are justified and not trite.

Rather than hunting for weaknesses in every study; only highlight limitations that make you doubt the conclusions that the authors have drawn – e.g., where an alternative explanation might be equally likely because something hasn’t been adequately controlled.

Compare or contrast different theories

Outline how the theories are similar and how they differ. This could be two (or more) theories of personality / memory / child development etc. Also try to communicate the value of the theory / study.

Debates or perspectives

Refer to debates such as nature or nurture, reductionism vs. holism, or the perspectives in psychology . For example, would they agree or disagree with a theory or the findings of the study?

What are the ethical issues of the research?

Does a study involve ethical issues such as deception, privacy, psychological or physical harm?

Gender bias

If research is biased towards men or women it does not provide a clear view of the behavior that has been studied. A dominantly male perspective is known as an androcentric bias.

Cultural bias

Is the theory / study ethnocentric? Psychology is predominantly a white, Euro-American enterprise. In some texts, over 90% of studies have US participants, who are predominantly white and middle class.

Does the theory or study being discussed judge other cultures by Western standards?

Animal Research

This raises the issue of whether it’s morally and/or scientifically right to use animals. The main criterion is that benefits must outweigh costs. But benefits are almost always to humans and costs to animals.

Animal research also raises the issue of extrapolation. Can we generalize from studies on animals to humans as their anatomy & physiology is different from humans?

The PEC System

It is very important to elaborate on your evaluation. Don’t just write a shopping list of brief (one or two sentence) evaluation points.

Instead, make sure you expand on your points, remember, quality of evaluation is most important than quantity.

When you are writing an evaluation paragraph, use the PEC system.

Make your P oint.
E xplain how and why the point is relevant.
Discuss the C onsequences / implications of the theory or study. Are they positive or negative?

For Example

Point: It is argued that psychoanalytic therapy is only of benefit to an articulate, intelligent, affluent minority.
Explain: Because psychoanalytic therapy involves talking and gaining insight, and is costly and time-consuming, it is argued that it is only of benefit to an articulate, intelligent, affluent minority. Evidence suggests psychoanalytic therapy works best if the client is motivated and has a positive attitude.
Consequences: A depressed client’s apathy, flat emotional state, and lack of motivation limit the appropriateness of psychoanalytic therapy for depression.

Furthermore, the levels of dependency of depressed clients mean that transference is more likely to develop.

Using Research Studies in your Essays

Research studies can either be knowledge or evaluation.

If you refer to the procedures and findings of a study, this shows knowledge and understanding.
If you comment on what the studies shows, and what it supports and challenges about the theory in question, this shows evaluation.

Writing an Introduction

It is often best to write your introduction when you have finished the main body of the essay, so that you have a good understanding of the topic area.

If there is a word count for your essay try to devote 10% of this to your introduction.

Ideally, the introduction should;

Identify the subject of the essay and define the key terms. Highlight the major issues which “lie behind” the question. Let the reader know how you will focus your essay by identifying the main themes to be discussed. “Signpost” the essay’s key argument, (and, if possible, how this argument is structured).

Introductions are very important as first impressions count and they can create a h alo effect in the mind of the lecturer grading your essay. If you start off well then you are more likely to be forgiven for the odd mistake later one.

Writing a Conclusion

So many students either forget to write a conclusion or fail to give it the attention it deserves.

If there is a word count for your essay try to devote 10% of this to your conclusion.

Ideally the conclusion should summarize the key themes / arguments of your essay. State the take home message – don’t sit on the fence, instead weigh up the evidence presented in the essay and make a decision which side of the argument has more support.

Also, you might like to suggest what future research may need to be conducted and why (read the discussion section of journal articles for this).

Don”t include new information / arguments (only information discussed in the main body of the essay).

If you are unsure of what to write read the essay question and answer it in one paragraph.

Points that unite or embrace several themes can be used to great effect as part of your conclusion.

The Importance of Flow

Obviously, what you write is important, but how you communicate your ideas / arguments has a significant influence on your overall grade. Most students may have similar information / content in their essays, but the better students communicate this information concisely and articulately.

When you have finished the first draft of your essay you must check if it “flows”. This is an important feature of quality of communication (along with spelling and grammar).

This means that the paragraphs follow a logical order (like the chapters in a novel). Have a global structure with themes arranged in a way that allows for a logical sequence of ideas. You might want to rearrange (cut and paste) paragraphs to a different position in your essay if they don”t appear to fit in with the essay structure.

To improve the flow of your essay make sure the last sentence of one paragraph links to first sentence of the next paragraph. This will help the essay flow and make it easier to read.

Finally, only repeat citations when it is unclear which study / theory you are discussing. Repeating citations unnecessarily disrupts the flow of an essay.

Referencing

The reference section is the list of all the sources cited in the essay (in alphabetical order). It is not a bibliography (a list of the books you used).

In simple terms every time you cite/refer to a name (and date) of a psychologist you need to reference the original source of the information.

If you have been using textbooks this is easy as the references are usually at the back of the book and you can just copy them down. If you have been using websites, then you may have a problem as they might not provide a reference section for you to copy.

References need to be set out APA style :

Author, A. A. (year). Title of work . Location: Publisher.

Journal Articles

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number (issue number), page numbers

A simple way to write your reference section is use Google scholar . Just type the name and date of the psychologist in the search box and click on the “cite” link.

Next, copy and paste the APA reference into the reference section of your essay.

Once again, remember that references need to be in alphabetical order according to surname.

Differences Between Psychological Approaches Essay

A perspective is an approach that bears particular assumptions or beliefs about the nature of the human behaviour. Each psychological perspective has its weaknesses and strengths as well as each psychological perspective having a different point of view on the understanding of human and animal behaviour. The knowledge and understanding of the psychological perspectives can contribute to the assessment and identification of the behaviour as well as the choice of intervention. However, one perspective cannot apply to every individual due to the fact that it can be relevant in one situation and irrelevant in another. Thus, a choice of the psychological approach will be determined by the context in which the behaviour occurs.

The psychodynamic perspective is the approach that is based on Freud’s works about human behaviour being determined by a feeling of subconsciousness. This psychological approach states that the visible issues that occur in children are caused by inner conflicts. Such problems may easily appear from early traumatic experiences in the past as well as badly-resolved relationships. Because of the lack of the inner resources, the majority of children cannot safely deal with trauma, thus, the dealing method is linked to improper behaviour ( Behavioural, emotional and social development unit 11. Psychological perspectives on behaviour 2012, p. 2).

Psychologists Watson, Thorndike, and Skinner greatly influenced the development of the behaviourist psychological perspective. The most relevant principle of the perspective is that the negative behaviour is suppressed while the positive is strengthened. According to the perspective, human behaviour is being learned by an individual, thus, it can be modified by the use of the punishment-reward system. The perspective emphasises the role of the environmental stimuli in determining the way individual acts. Generally speaking, it refers to learning – different changes that occur as a result of experiences. The choice of focus is the factor that makes the behaviourist perspectives unique from others (Glassman & Hadad 2013, p. 110).

According to the cognitive perspective, the cognitive processes that refer to understanding and reasoning have the most effect on the behaviour of an individual.

The cognitive perspective puts forward an idea that the cognitive processes of reasoning, interpretation or understanding are the events that have the most influence on the individual’s behaviour. In addition, the approach sets a goal to answer of the question of why the same factor affects various responses in various individuals. There is no relation to the processes of unconsciousness; thus, the cognitive perspective is very different from the psychodynamic one. Rather, the cognitive perspective is linked to the consciousness and thinking or reasoning about a particular situation. The difference from the behavioural approach lies in the fact that the cognitive approach is connected to the unmeasurable events that cannot be observed.

The humanist perspective is developed from the works of Maslow and Rogers. The idea of the perspective is about an idea of the behaviour being a centre of an individual, that is the consciousness of the identity. Theorists held a view that an individual could fulfil the potential with the help of the positive self-regard (positive view of themselves). However, this is only possible when an individual has an unconditional positive regard of other people if an individual feels respect and value from those people that surround them. Another aspect of the humanist perspective refers to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In the hierarchy, the more basic human needs lay a foundation for the higher needs.

For example, an individual has to have his or her achievement recognised; however, it will be impossible if an individual is hungry. Maslow’s theory concluded that those people that were able to satisfy their needs can become self-actualisers. On the other hand, it was thought that the long periods when a certain need was not satisfied by an individual could lead to a fixation. For instance, a person who grew up in poverty and starvation may be surrounded by anxiety about the lack of food even if they could afford it and escape poverty (Sammons n.d., p. 1).

The idea of an ecosystem greatly influenced the ecosystemic psychological perspective. In such a system, every minor change will affect the system. The approach is characterised by the assumptions that the negative behaviour in individuals is affected by the social interactions. Moreover, negative behaviour is considered a link in a reaction chain between the individuals. For instance, the ecosystemic approach can be applied in the interaction between teachers, students, and the families of the students. The changes in the negative behaviour are only possible with the focus on each individual separately.

Explanations of Intellectual and Moral Development

Intellectual development is a progression that starts with ignorance or uncertainty to the intelligent confusion. For example, a majority of students entering college are tightly connected with the ignorant uncertainty. The system of beliefs that students have is greatly influenced by the system of beliefs of others. To support the validity of the belief system, students rarely applied any reasoning or critical thinking. The previous beliefs are being challenged by the life experiences, the opinions of other people, classmates, teachers. Thus, unless an individual closes to any life-changing experiences or challenges, the naïve belief system begins to change and develop in accordance to the new acquired knowledge.

In order for students to attain intellectual maturity, it is important for them to function effectively as professionals and recognise their progression from the ignorant certainty to the intelligent confusion. According to Perry’s model of intellectual development, an individual starts developing from the blind acceptance of authority to a stage-by-stage acceptance of multiplicity of the views and then to the awareness of the necessity for commitment to the uncertainty, and lastly, undertaking the commitments and recognizing the implications (Felder 2004, p. 270).

Perry’s model was challenged by the fact that his studies only accounted the male population and disregarded the female patterns of development. In Women’s Ways of Knowing, Belecky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1997, p. 10) conducted a research in which they interviewed women about their life-changing experiences. As a result of the research, the foundings divided into five different perspectives that had similarities in the Perry’s model of development. On the other hand, the perspectives differed in the way the authors of the research underlined the gender differences in the development of an individual.

The levels of the Belencky model included silence, received knowing, subjective knowing, procedural knowing, and constructed knowledge. Moral development of an individual is connected with the formation of the value system that is based on the decisions about what is right or wrong, good or bad. The value system is made up of standards and assumptions that lead the process of the moral decision-making. There are several approaches that study the moral development of an individual; they are characterised in different ways.

The social learning approach is linked to the idea that each individual develops morality by studying the external rules that showcase the acceptable norms of the human behaviour. Thus, the social learning approach is linked to the behaviourist perspective. The approach puts forward an idea that the demands of the society and the instincts that exist within an individual are the pillars for the development of morality. The personality perspective towards the morality development offers a holistic approach while the cognitive development theories have suggested that the moral development is based on conditioning.

There is a certain difference in the approaches that study the moral development of an individual that can be formulated in a question: where an individual starts a journey of the moral development and where the journey ends. The debated topic of the modern Western society is the definition what is moral and what is immoral. With the rise of technological advanced and the scientific progress determining the moral frameworks of certain actions can become a complicated task. As an example, let’s examine the pre-natal testing. If there are any defects of the uterus found in the result of testing, the moral choice an individual to give birth to a child can become quite difficult.

To sum up, the study of the individual’s moral development is still relevant to the psychological circles. The significant rise in substance abuse, suicides, and teenage pregnancies are causing an increase of concern about the moral development of people, especially children. Parents or caretakers want to know how to properly raise their children so that they grow up moral individuals. With this issue, many turn with this question to developmental theorists. On the one hand, the guidelines for morally raising children provided by the theorists are sometimes hard to follow, thus, not every parent, caretaker or a teacher is able to devote a lot of time, resources, and efforts to strictly raise moral individuals. On the other hand, if children are being encouraged since birth, given a possibility and opportunity to develop and practice moral behaviour, most likely they will be able to form a moral behaviour that will guide them through life (Daeg de Mott n.d., p. 5).

Reference List

Behavioural, emotional and social development unit 11. Psychological perspectives on behaviour 2012. Web.

Belenky, M, Clinchy, B, Goldberger, N & Tarule, J 1997 , Women’s ways of knowing: the development of self, voice, and mind, Basic Books, New York.

Daeg de Mott, D n.d., Moral development, Web.

Felder, R 2004, ‘The intellectual development of science and engineering students part 1. Models and challenges’, Journal of Engineering Education , vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 269-277.

Glassman, W & Hadad, M 2013, Approaches to psychology , McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Berkshire.

Sammons, A n.d. The Humanistic approach: the basics . Web.

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Bibliography

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36 What Is Psychological Criticism?

One of the key principles of psychological criticism is the idea that literature can be used to explore and understand the human psyche, including unconscious and repressed desires and fears. For example, psychoanalytic criticism might explore how the characters in a work of literature are shaped by their early childhood experiences or their relationships with their parents.

Psychological criticism can be applied to any genre of literature, from poetry to novels to plays, and can be used to analyze a wide range of literary works, from classic literature to contemporary bestsellers. It is often used in conjunction with other critical approaches, such as feminist or postcolonial criticism, to explore the ways in which psychological factors intersect with social and cultural factors in the creation and interpretation of literary works.

Learning Objectives

Deliberate on what approach best suits particular texts and purposes (CLO 1.4)
Using a literary theory, choose appropriate elements of literature (formal, content, or context) to focus on in support of an interpretation (CLO 2.3)
Be exposed to a variety of critical strategies through literary theory lenses, such as formalism/New Criticism, reader-response, structuralism, deconstruction, historical and cultural approaches (New Historicism, postcolonial, Marxism), psychological approaches, feminism, and queer theory. (CLO 4.2)
Learn to make effective choices about applying critical strategies to texts that demonstrate awareness of the strategy’s assumptions and expectations, the text’s literary maneuvers, and the stance one takes in literary interpretation (CLO 4.4)
Be exposed to the diversity of human experience, thought, politics, and conditions through the application of critical theory (CLO 6.4)

Excerpts from Psychological Criticism Scholarship

I have a confession to make that is likely rooted in my unconscious (or perhaps I am repressing something): I don’t much care for Sigmund Freud. But his psychoanalytic approach underpins psychological criticism in literary studies, so it’s important to be aware of psychoanalytic concepts and how they can be used in literary analysis. We will read a few examples of psychological criticism below, starting with a primary text, a theoretical explanation of psychoanalytic theory, Freud’s “First Lecture” (1920). In this reading, Freud gives a broad outline of the two main tenets of his theories: 1) that our behaviors are often indicators of psychic processes that are unconscious; and 2) that sexual impulses are at the root of mental disorders as well as cultural achievements. In the second and third readings, I share two example of literary criticism, one written by a medical doctor in 1910 that use Freud’s Oedipus complex theories to explicate William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, and the second, a modern example of psychological theory applied to the same play. To appreciate how influential Freud’s theories have been on the study of Hamlet , try a simple JSTOR search with “Freud” and “Hamlet” as your key terms. When I tried this in October 2023, the search yielded 7,420 results.

From “First Lecture” in A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud (1920)

With two of its assertions, psychoanalysis offends the whole world and draws aversion upon itself. One of these assertions offends an intellectual prejudice, the other an aesthetic-moral one. Let us not think too lightly of these prejudices; they are powerful things, remnants of useful, even necessary, developments of mankind. They are retained through powerful affects, and the battle against them is a hard one. The first of these displeasing assertions of psychoanalysis is this, that the psychic processes are in themselves unconscious, and that those which are conscious are merely isolated acts and parts of the total psychic life. Recollect that we are, on the contrary, accustomed to identify the psychic with the conscious. Consciousness actually means for us the distinguishing characteristic of the psychic life, and psychology is the science of the content of consciousness. Indeed, so obvious does this identification seem to us that we consider its slightest contradiction obvious nonsense, and yet psychoanalysis cannot avoid raising this contradiction; it cannot accept the identity of the conscious with the psychic. Its definition of the psychic affirms that they are processes of the nature of feeling, thinking, willing; and it must assert that there is such a thing as unconscious thinking and unconscious willing. But with this assertion psychoanalysis has alienated, to start with, the sympathy of all friends of sober science, and has laid itself open to the suspicion of being a fantastic mystery study which would build in darkness and fish in murky waters. You, however, ladies and gentlemen, naturally cannot as yet understand what justification I have for stigmatizing as a prejudice so abstract a phrase as this one, that “the psychic is consciousness.” You cannot know what evaluation can have led to the denial of the unconscious, if such a thing really exists, and what advantage may have resulted from this denial. It sounds like a mere argument over words whether one shall say that the psychic coincides with the conscious or whether one shall extend it beyond that, and yet I can assure you that by the acceptance of unconscious processes you have paved the way for a decisively new orientation in the world and in science. Just as little can you guess how intimate a connection this initial boldness of psychoanalysis has with the one which follows. The next assertion which psychoanalysis proclaims as one of its discoveries, affirms that those instinctive impulses which one can only call sexual in the narrower as well as in the wider sense, play an uncommonly large role in the causation of nervous and mental diseases, and that those impulses are a causation which has never been adequately appreciated. Nay, indeed, psychoanalysis claims that these same sexual impulses have made contributions whose value cannot be overestimated to the highest cultural, artistic and social achievements of the human mind. According to my experience, the aversion to this conclusion of psychoanalysis is the most significant source of the opposition which it encounters. Would you like to know how we explain this fact? We believe that civilization was forged by the driving force of vital necessity, at the cost of instinct-satisfaction, and that the process is to a large extent constantly repeated anew, since each individual who newly enters the human community repeats the sacrifices of his instinct-satisfaction for the sake of the common good. Among the instinctive forces thus utilized, the sexual impulses play a significant role. They are thereby sublimated, i.e., they are diverted from their sexual goals and directed to ends socially higher and no longer sexual. But this result is unstable. The sexual instincts are poorly tamed. Each individual who wishes to ally himself with the achievements of civilization is exposed to the danger of having his sexual instincts rebel against this sublimation. Society can conceive of no more serious menace to its civilization than would arise through the satisfying of the sexual instincts by their redirection toward their original goals. Society, therefore, does not relish being reminded of this ticklish spot in its origin; it has no interest in having the strength of the sexual instincts recognized and the meaning of the sexual life to the individual clearly delineated. On the contrary, society has taken the course of diverting attention from this whole field. This is the reason why society will not tolerate the above-mentioned results of psychoanalytic research, and would prefer to brand it as aesthetically offensive and morally objectionable or dangerous. Since, however, one cannot attack an ostensibly objective result of scientific inquiry with such objections, the criticism must be translated to an intellectual level if it is to be voiced. But it is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it. Society thus brands what is unpleasant as untrue, denying the conclusions of psychoanalysis with logical and pertinent arguments. These arguments originate from affective sources, however, and society holds to these prejudices against all attempts at refutation.

Excerpts from “The Œdipus-Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet’s Mystery: A Study in Motive” by Ernest Jones (1910)

The particular problem of Hamlet, with which this paper is concerned, is intimately related to some of the most frequently recurring problems that are presented in the course of psycho-analysis [sic], and it has thus seemed possible to secure a new point of view from which an answer might be offered to questions that have baffled attempts made along less technical routes. Some of the most competent literary authorities have freely acknowledged the inadequacy of all the solutions of the problem that have up to the present been offered, and from a psychological point of view this inadequacy is still more evident. The aim of the present paper is to expound an hypothesis which Freud some nine years ago suggested in one of the footnotes to his Traumdeutung ,·so far as I am aware it has not been critically discussed since its publication. Before attempting this it will be necessary to make a few general remarks about the nature of the problem and the previous solutions that have been offered. The problem presented by the tragedy of Hamlet is one of peculiar interest in at least two respects. In the first place the play is almost universally considered to be the chief masterpiece of one of the greatest minds the world has known. It probably expresses the core of Shakspere’s [sic] philosophy and outlook on life as no other work of his does, and so far excels all his other writings that many competent critics would place it on an entirely separate level from them. It may be expected, therefore, that anything which will give us the key to the inner meaning of the play will necessarily give us the clue to much of the deeper workings of Shakspere’s mind. In the second place the intrinsic interest of the play is exceedingly great. The central mystery in it, namely the cause of Hamlet’s hesitancy in seeking to obtain revenge for the murder of his father, has well been called the Sphinx of modern Literature. It has given rise to a regiment of hypotheses, and to a large library of critical and controversial literature; this is mainly German and for the most part has grown up in the past fifty years. No review of the literature will here be attempted…. The most important hypotheses that have been put forward are sub-varieties of three main points of view. The first of these sees the difficulty in the performance of the task in Hamlet’s temperament, which is not suited to effective action of any kind; the second sees it in the nature of the task, which is such as to be almost impossible of performance by any one; and the third in some special feature in the nature of the task which renders it peculiarly difficult or repugnant to Hamlet…. No disconnected and meaningless drama could have produced the effects on its audiences that Hamlet has continuously done for the past three centuries. The underlying meaning of the drama may be totally obscure, but that there is one, and one which touches on problems of vital interest to the human heart, is empirically demonstrated by the uniform success with which the drama appeals to the most diverse audiences. To hold the contrary is to deny all the canons of dramatic art accepted since the time of Aristotle. Hamlet as a masterpiece stands or falls by these canons. We are compelled then to take the position that there is some cause for Hamlet’s vacillation which has not yet been fathomed. If this lies neither in his incapacity for action in general, nor in the inordinate difficulty of the task in question, then it must of necessity lie in the third possibility, namely in some special feature of the task that renders it repugnant to him. This conclusion, that Hamlet at heart does not want to carry out the task, seems so obvious that it is hard to see how any critical reader of the play could avoid making it…. It may be asked: why has the poet not put in a clearer light the mental trend we are trying to discover? Strange as it may appear, the answer is the same as in the case of Hamlet himself, namely, he could not, because he was unaware of its nature. We shall later deal with this matter in connection with the relation of the poet to the play. But, if the motive of the play is so obscure, to what can we attribute its powerful effect on the audience? This can only be because the hero’s conflict finds its echo in a similar inner conflict in the mind of the hearer, and the more intense is this already present conflict the greater is the effect of the drama. Again, the hearer himself does not know the inner cause of the conflict in his mind, but experiences only the outer manifestations of it. We thus reach the apparent paradox that the hero, the poet, and the audience are all profoundly moved by feelings due to a conflict of the source of which they are unaware [emphasis added]. The extensive experience of the psycho-analytic researches carried out by Freud and his school during the past twenty years has amply demonstrated that certain kinds of mental processes shew a greater tendency to be “repressed” ( verdrangt ) than others. In other words, it is harder for a person to own to himself the existence in his mind of some mental trends than it is of others. In order to gain a correct perspective it is therefore desirable briefly to enquire into the relative frequency with which various sets of mental processes are “repressed.” One might in this connection venture the generalisation that those processes are most likely to be “repressed” by the individual which are most disapproved of by the particular circle of society to whose influence he bas chiefly been subjected. Biologically stated, this law would run: ”That which is inacceptable to the herd becomes inacceptable to the individual unit,” it being understood that the term herd is intended in the sense of the particular circle above defined, which is by no means necessarily the community at large. It is for this reason that moral, social, ethical or religious influences are hardly ever ”repressed,” for as the individual originally received them from his herd, they can never come into conflict with the dicta of the latter. This merely says that a man cannot be ashamed of that which he respects; the apparent exceptions to this need not here be explained. The contrary is equally true, namely that mental trends “repressed” by the individual are those least acceptable to his herd; they are, therefore, those which are, curiously enough, distinguished as “natural” instincts, as contrasted with secondarily acquired mental trends. It only remains to add the obvious corollary that, as the herd unquestionably selects from the “natural” instincts the sexual ones on which to lay its heaviest ban, so is it the various psycho-sexual trends that most often are “repressed” by the individual. We have here an explanation of the clinical experience that the more intense and the more obscure is a given case of deep mental conflict the more certainly will it be found, on adequate analysis, to centre about a sexual problem. On the surface, of course, this does not appear so, for, by means of various psychological defensive mechanisms, the depression, doubt, and other manifestations of the conflict are transferred on to more acceptable subjects, such as the problems of immortality, future of the world, salvation of the soul, and so on. Bearing these considerations in mind, let us return to Hamlet. It should now be evident that the conflict hypotheses above mentioned, which see Hamlet’s “natural” instinct for revenge inhibited by an unconscious misgiving of a highly ethical kind, are based on ignorance of what actually happens in real life, for misgivings of this kind are in fact readily accessible to introspection. Hamlet’s self-study would speedily have made him conscious of any such ethical misgivings, and although he might subsequently have ignored them, it would almost certainly have been by the aid of a process of rationalization which would have enabled him to deceive himself into believing that such misgivings were really ill founded; he would in any case have remained conscious of the nature of them. We must therefore invert these hypotheses, and realise that the positive striving for revenge was to him the moral and social one, and that the suppressed negative striving against revenge arose in some hidden source connected with his more personal, “natural” instincts. The former striving has already been considered, and indeed is manifest in every speech in which Hamlet debates the matter; the second is, from its nature, more obscure and has next to be investigated. This is perhaps most easily done by inquiring more intently into Hamlet’s precise attitude towards the object of his vengeance, Claudius, and towards the crimes that have to be avenged. These are two, Claudius’ incest with the Queen, and his murder of his brother. It is of great importance to note the fundamental difference in Hamlet’s attitude towards these two crimes. Intellectually of course he abhors both, but there can be no question as to which arouses in him the deeper loathing. Whereas the murder of his father evokes in him indignation, and a plain recognition of his obvious duty to avenge it, his mother’s guilty conduct awakes in him the intensest horror. Now, in trying to define Hamlet’s attitude towards his uncle we have to guard against assuming offhand that this is a simple one of mere execration, for there is a possibility of complexity arising in the following way: The uncle has not merely committed each crime, he has committed both crimes, a distinction of considerable importance, for the combination of crimes allows the admittance of a new factor, produced by the possible inter-relation of the two, which prevents the result from being simply one of summation. In addition it has to be borne in mind that the perpetrator of the crimes is a relative, and an exceedingly near relative. The possible inter-relation of the crimes, and the fact that the author of them is an actual member of the family on which they were perpetrated, gives scope for a confusion in their influence on Hamlet’s mind that may be the cause of the very obscurity we are seeking to clarify.

Introduction to “Ophelia’s Desire” by James Marino (2017)

Every great theory is founded on a problem it cannot solve. For psychoanalytic criticism, that problem is Ophelia. Sigmund Freud’s Oedipal reading of Hamlet , mutually constitutive with his reading of Oedipus Rex , initiates the project of Freudian literary interpretation. But that reading must, by its most basic logic, displace Ophelia and render her an anomaly. If the Queen is Hamlet’s primary erotic object, why does he have another love interest? Why such a specific and unusual love interest? The answer that Freud and his disciples offer is that Hamlet’s expressions of love or rage toward Ophelia are displace-ments of his cathexis on the queen. That argument is tautological—one might as easily say that Hamlet displaces his cathected frustration with Ophelia onto the Queen—and requires that some evidence from the text be ignored—“No, good mother,” Hamlet tells the Queen, “here’s metal more attractive”—but the idea of the Queen as Hamlet’s primary affective object remains a standard orthodoxy, common even in feminist Freudians’ readings of Hamlet . Janet Adelman’s Suffocating Mothers , for example, takes the mother-son dyad as central, while Julia Reinhard Lupton and Kenneth Reinhard highlight the symbolic condensation of Ophelia with the Queen. The argument for Ophelia as substitute object may reach its apotheosis in Jacques Lacan’s famous essay on Hamlet, which begins with “that piece of bait named Ophelia” only to use her as an example of Hamlet’s estrangement from his own desire. Margreta de Grazia’s “Hamlet” without Hamlet has illuminated how the romantic tradition of Hamlet criticism, from which Freud’s own Hamlet criticism derives, focuses on Hamlet’s psychology at the expense of the play’s other characters, who are reduced to figures in the Prince’s individual psychomachia. While psychoanalytic reading objectifies all of Hamlet ’s supporting characters, Ophelia is not even allowed to be an object in her own right. Insistently demoted to a secondary or surrogate object, Ophelia becomes mysteriously super-fluous, like a symptom unconnected from its cause. Ophelia is the foundational problem, the nagging flaw in psychoanalytic criticism’s cornerstone. The play becomes very different if Ophelia is decoupled from the Queen and read as an independent and structurally central character, as a primary object of desire, and even as a desiring subject in her own right. I do not mean to describe the character as a real person, with a fully human psychology; Ophelia is a fiction, constructed from intersecting and contradicting generic expectations. But in those generic terms Ophelia is startlingly unusual, indeed unique, in ways that psychoanalytic criticism has been reluctant to recognize. If stage characters become individuated to the extent that they deviate from established convention, acting against type, then Ophelia is one of William Shakespeare’s most richly individual heroines. And if Shakespeare creates the illusion of interiority, or invites his audience to collaborate in that illusion, by withholding easy explanations of motive, Ophelia’s inner life is rich with mystery. Attention to the elements of Ophelia’s character that psychoanalytic readings resist or repress illuminates the deeper fantasies shaping psychoanalytic discourse. The literary dreams underpinning psychoanalysis are neither simply to be debunked nor to be reconstituted, but to be analyzed. If, as the debates over psychoanalysis over the last three decades have shown, much of Freudian thinking is not science, then it is fantasy; and fantasy, as Freud himself teaches, rewards strict attention. Ophelia, rightly attended, may tell us something about Hamlet, and about Hamlet, that critics have not always wished to know. To see Ophelia clearly would also make it clear how closely Hamlet resembles her and how faithfully his tragic arc follows hers.

Beyond Freud: Applying Psychological Theories to Literary Texts

Fortunately, we are not limited to Freud when we engage in psychological criticism. We can choose any psychological theory. Here are just a few you might consider:

Carl Jung’s archetypes: humans have a collective unconscious that includes universal archetypes such as the shadow, the persona, and the anima/us.
B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism: all behaviors are learned through conditioning.
Jacques Lacan’s conception of the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic.
Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development: describes the effects of social development across a person’s lifespan.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development: explains how people develop moral reasoning.
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: people’s basic needs need to be met before they can pursue more advanced emotional and intellectual needs.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ s five stages of grief: a framework for understanding loss.
Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Bancroft Clark’s work on internalized racism.
Derald Wing Sue and David Sue’s work with Indigenous spiritual frameworks and mental health.

It’s important to differentiate this type of criticism from looking at “mental health” or considering how the poem affects our emotions. When we are exploring how a poem makes us feel, this is subjective reader response, not psychological criticism. Psychological criticism involves analyzing a literary work through the lens of a psychological theory, exploring characters’ motivations, behaviors, and the author’s psychological influences. Here are a few approaches you might take to apply psychological criticism to a text:

Psychological Theories: Familiarize yourself with the basics of key psychological theories, such as Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian archetypes, or cognitive psychology. This knowledge provides a foundation for interpreting characters and their actions. It’s best to choose one particular theory to use in your analysis.
Author’s Background: Research the author’s life and background. Explore how their personal experiences, relationships, and psychological state might have influenced the creation of characters or the overall themes of the text. Also consider what unconscious desires or fears might be present in the text. How can the text serve as a window to the author’s mind? The fictional novel Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell uses the text of Hamlet along with the few facts that are known about Shakespeare’s life to consider how the play could be read as an expression of the author’s grief at losing his 11-year-old son.
Character Analysis: Examine characters’ personalities, motivations, and conflicts. Consider how their experiences, desires, and fears influence their actions within the narrative. Look for signs of psychological trauma, defense mechanisms, or unconscious desires. You can see an example of this in the two literary articles above, where the authors consider Hamlet’s and Ophelia’s motivations and conflicts.
Symbolism and Imagery: Analyze symbols and imagery in the text. Understand how these elements may represent psychological concepts or emotions. For example, a recurring symbol might represent a character’s repressed desires or fears.
Themes and Motifs: Identify recurring themes and motifs. Explore how these elements reflect psychological concepts or theories. For instance, a theme of isolation might be analyzed in terms of its impact on characters’ mental states. An example of a motif in Hamlet would be the recurring ghost.
Archetypal Analysis: Jungian analysis is one of my personal favorite approaches to take to texts. You can apply archetypal psychology to identify universal symbols or patterns in characters. Carl Jung’s archetypes , such as the persona, shadow, or anima/animus, can provide insights into the deeper layers of character development.
Psychological Trajectories: Trace the psychological development of characters throughout the narrative. Identify key moments or events that shape their personalities and behaviors. Consider how these trajectories contribute to the overall psychological impact of the text.
Psychoanalytic Concepts: If relevant, apply psychoanalytic concepts such as id, ego, and superego . Explore how characters navigate internal conflicts or succumb to unconscious desires. Freudian analysis can uncover hidden motivations and tensions.

Because psychological criticism involves interpretation, there may be multiple valid perspectives on a single text. When using this critical method, I recommend focusing on a single psychological approach (e.g. choose Freud or Jung; don’t try to do both).

Let’s practice with Emily Dickinson’s poem “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass,” using Freud’s psychoanalytic theories as our psychological approach. Read the poem first, then use the questions below to guide your interpretation of the poem.

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass* (1865)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Manuscript of "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" from the Morgan Library

A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides: You may have met him, —did you not, His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb, A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre. A floor too cool for corn. Yet when a child, and barefoot, I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash Unbraiding in the Sun.— When, stooping to secure it, It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature’s people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone.

*I’ve used the “corrected” version published in 1865. Here is a link to the transcribed version from the original manuscript.

Here are a few questions to consider as you apply Freudian psychoanalysis to the poem.

Imagery and Motifs: This poem is one of just 10 Emily Dickinson poems published during her lifetime. The editor chose a different title for the poem: “The Snake” . How does adding this title change the reader’s experience with the poem? Which words in the poem seem odd in the context of this title? In a Freudian reading of the poem, what would the snake (if it is a snake) represent?
Repression and Symbolism: How might the “narrow Fellow in the Grass” symbolize repressed desires or memories in the speaker’s subconscious? What elements in the poem suggest a hidden, perhaps uncomfortable, aspect of the speaker’s psyche?
Penis Envy: In Freudian theory, penis envy refers to a girl’s desire for male genitalia. How does this concept apply to the poem? Dickinson’s handwritten version of the poem says “boy” instead of “child” in line 11. How does this change impact how we read the poem?
Unconscious Fears and Anxiety (Zero at the Bone): The closing lines mention a “tighter Breathing” and feeling “Zero at the Bone.” How can Freud’s ideas about the unconscious and anxiety be applied here? What might the encounter with the Fellow reveal about the speaker’s hidden fears or anxieties, and how does it impact the speaker on a deep, unconscious level?
Punctuation: The manuscript versions of this poem do not use normal punctuation conventions. Instead, the author uses a dash. How does this change our reading of the poem? What does her use of dashes imply about her psychological state?

As with New Historicism, you’ll need to do some research and cite a source for the psychological theory you apply. Introduce the psychological theory, then use it to analyze the poem. Make sure to support your analysis with specific textual evidence from the poem. Use line numbers to refer to specific parts of the text.

You’ll want to come up with a thesis statement that you can support with the evidence you’ve found.

Freudian Analysis Thesis Statement: In Emily Dickinson’s poem “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass,” the encounter with a snake serves as a symbolic manifestation of repressed desires, unconscious fears, and penis envy, offering a Freudian exploration of the complex interplay between the conscious and unconscious mind.

How would this thesis statement be different if you had chosen a different approach–for example, Erik Erikson’s theory of child development? How does this analysis differ from a New Criticism approach? Do you think that a Freudian approach is useful in helping readers to appreciate this poem?

The Limitations of Psychological Criticism

While psychological criticism provides valuable insights into the human psyche and enriches our understanding of literary works, it also has its limitations. Here are a few:

Subjectivity: Psychological interpretations often rely on subjective analysis, as different readers may perceive and interpret psychological elements in a text differently. The lack of objective criteria can make it challenging to establish a universally accepted interpretation. However, using an established psychological theory can help to address this concern.
Authorial Intent: Inferring an author’s psychological state or intentions based on their work can be speculative. Without direct evidence from the author about their psychological motivations, interpretations may be subjective and open to debate.
Overemphasis on Individual Psychology: Psychological criticism may focus heavily on individual psychology and neglect broader social, cultural, or historical contexts that also influence literature. This narrow focus may oversimplify the complexity of human experience.
Stereotyping Characters: Applying psychological theories to characters may lead to oversimplified or stereotypical portrayals. Characters might be reduced to representing specific psychological concepts, overlooking their multifaceted nature. Consider the scholarly readings above and how Ophelia has traditionally been read as an accessory to Hamlet rather than as a fully developed character in her own right.
Neglect of Formal Elements: Psychological criticism may sometimes neglect formal elements of a text, such as structure, style, and language, in favor of exploring psychological aspects. This oversight can limit a comprehensive understanding of the literary work.
Inconsistency in Psychoanalytic Theories: Different psychoanalytic theories exist, and scholars may apply competing frameworks, leading to inconsistent interpretations. For example, a Freudian interpretation may differ significantly from a Jungian analysis.
Exclusion of Reader Response: While psychological criticism often explores the author’s psyche, it may not give sufficient attention to the diverse psychological responses of readers. The reader’s own psychology and experiences contribute to the meaning derived from a text. In formal literary criticism, as we noted above, this type of approach is considered to be subjective reader response, but it might be an interesting area of inquiry that is traditionally excluded from psychological criticism approaches.
Neglect of Positive Aspects: Psychological criticism may sometimes focus too much on negative or pathological aspects of characters, overlooking positive psychological dimensions and the potential for growth and redemption within the narrative (we care a lot more about what’s wrong with Hamlet than what’s right with him).

Acknowledging these limitations helps balance the use of psychological criticism with other literary approaches, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of a literary work.

Psychological Criticism Scholars

There is considerable overlap in psychological criticism scholarship. With this type of approach, some psychologists/psychiatrists use literary texts to demonstrate or explicate psychological theories, while some literary scholars use psychological theories to interpret works. Here are a few better-known literary scholars who practice this type of criticism:

Sigmund Freud, who used Greek literature to develop his theories about the psyche
Carl Jung, whose ideas of the archetypes are fascinating
Alfred Adler, a student of Freud’s who particularly focused on literature and psychoanalysis
Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst whose ideas of the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic provide interesting insights into literary texts.

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Approaches in Psychology

Explanation of approaches in psychology, including behaviorism, cognitive and psychodynamic approaches, and biological approaches..

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Psychologists take different approaches, or perspectives, when attempting to understand human behavior. For instance, psychologists taking the biological approach assume that differences in behavior can be understood in terms of genes, brain structure and hormones, which can predispose a person to particular health conditions.

Psychodynamic Approach

Different approaches in psychology offer contrasting explanations for many issues. Taking a biological approach to understand the causes of schizophrenia , for example, one might refer to twin studies , which have indicated a genetic component to the disorder. However, the behavior approach emphasizes the correlations between schizophrenia and being raised in a city as opposed to the countryside ( Lewis et al, 1992 ).

Of course, both genetic and environmental factors often influence the same issue, and so each of the explanations given by various approaches can help us to further our understanding in psychology.

Below, we summarise and evaluate five key approaches:

Physiological Approach (Biological)

The physiological approach assumes that biological factors influence our behavior and mental well-being in a cause-and-effect manner, in the same way as exposure to a disease can lead to illness. Biological factors include genes, inherited from a person’s parents, which psychologists believe can influence whether they are predisposed to some conditions.

The biological approach also focuses on the physical processes that occur within the central nervous system (CNS), which comprises the brain and spinal cord. Neuroscientists have found that different areas of the brain serve specific functions, supporting influence of the brain’s structure on people’s behavior. For instance, the temporal lobe assists in the processing of language , whilst the frontal lobe plays a role in our experience of emotions .

As technological advancements have improved scientists’ ability to investigate processes occurring within the brain, they have been able to identify the role played by specific regions of the brain. The amygdala helps us to store memories and to experience emotions . Maguire et al (2000) found that the hippocampus , which serves important memory functions, was larger in the brains of London taxi drivers, who are required to store vast amounts of street information in order to fulfill their job.

This study demonstrates how the brain can respond to changing conditions, such as the need to remember information, with biological adjustments known as neuroplasticity .

The biological approach also seeks to understand humans as a collection of chemical reactions. For instance, research suggests that levels of neurotransmitters in the brain such as serotonin play a role in depression.

Stress: Fight or Flight Response

Compared to other approaches, biological perspectives such as the physiological approach adhere the closest to established scientific methods of studying the human mind. The approach relies upon the observation of humans and other animals in experiments. The validity of findings derived from experiments can be tested by other psychologists, owing to their replicability .

Brain imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI (fMRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans play an increasingly significant role in the investigation of processes occurring within the brain.

The physiological approach’s strengths lie in its reliance on empirical findings from experiments and its falsifiability . Unlike the psychodynamic theories of Freud , hypotheses can be proven or disproven.

The biological approach has led to important developments in the production of drug-based therapies for the treatment of disorders such as depression. However, questions remain regarding the success and ethics of other physiological procedures such as lobotomies , where the connections between sections of the brain are severed, and electroconvulsive therapy ( ECT ).

Critics view the physiological approach as reductionist , as it ignores the complexities and unpredictability of humans, their personalities and their behavior. The approach also ignores to an extent environmental influences, such as learned behavior.

Learn more about biological approaches here

Evolutionary Approach

The evolutionary approach also looks to a person’s biological composition in order to understand their behavior. But, where physiological explanations cite activity within an individual and their brain, the evolutionary approach assumes that the mind has been fine-tuned in response to its environment over many millions of years.

A general theory of evolution was proposed by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species . Darwin’s ideas were in part the result of a trip to the Galápagos islands. Whilst comparing the anatomy of birds across the islands, he found that the shape of their beaks varied depending on the environment of the island on which they lived. He concluded that the birds, which would eventually be known as Darwin’s finches, had changed from generation to generation, in response to their habitat.

The shape of the birds’ beaks had adapted to enable them to forage for food available to them more effectively.

This adaptation is the result of natural selection , whereby optimally adapted individuals are able to feed more, and stand an increased chance of reproducing to produce similar offspring. Similarly, traits which are desirable in a partner are more likely to be passed to further generations as a result of sexual selection .

Evolutionary psychologists believe that the principles of evolution can be used to understand human behavior. Many consider the experience of stress to be a result of humans’ adaptation to survive predators. As part of the fight-or-flight response to a threat, the body will adopt a state of alertness in preparation to fend off an aggressor or to escape them. Today, however, stress no longer serves as significant survival advantage as it would have to our earlier ancestors.

Like the physiological approach, evolutionary psychology provides credible evidence explaining why we behave as we do. However, the approach has been criticised for being reductionist and for failing to account for the individual differences amongst different people.

Learn more about the evolutionary approach here

Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach assumes that each person is born a tabula rasa , or blank slate. Rather than being influenced by genes and biological processes, behaviorists believe that our outward behavior is determined by our external environment. A person learns from his or her life experiences and is shaped to behave in a particular way as a result. Behaviorists look at the behavior a person exhibits, rather than the inner processes of the mind.

Radical behaviorist John B. Watson (1878-1958) set out the principles of the behavioral approach in a 1913 paper entitled Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It , which would later be described as the ‘behaviorist manifesto’. He emphasised the “objective” nature of the approach, believed that scientific methods could be applied to human behavior, and that a person’s behavior could be observed, measured and quantified through experimentation ( Watson, 1913 ).

Behaviorists focus on conditioning - both classical and operant forms - as a form of learning. Conditioning involves the use of a stimulus to evoke a desired response - a particular type of behavior - from a person or animal. Animal trainers, for instance, provide dogs with the prospect of a treat (a stimulus ) to reward good behavior (the conditioned response ).

Research into classical conditioning was pioneered by physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). In laboratory experiments with dogs, a researcher would open a door to feed the animals.

Instinctively, the dogs would salivate at the sight of food.

However, Pavlov observed that the dogs would salivate when the door opened, even when no food was provided. The dogs had begun to associate the opening of the door with the receipt of food. In time, the door - an unconditioned stimulus - had become a conditioned stimulus, evoking the dogs’ conditioned response of salivation.

In 1905, Edward Thorndike identified an alternative form of conditioning in cats, which he described as the law of effect . B. F. Skinner also observed this behavior in pigeons, referring to it as operant conditioning . In an experiment where pigeons were fed periodically through a mechanism in a ‘Skinner box’, he observed that the birds learnt to enact particular types of behavior, such as turning counter-clockwise, prior to receiving food. The food was a positive reinforcer of their behavior ( Skinner, 1948 ).

During operant conditioning, one learns to adopt a particular behavior as a result of reinforcements or punishments . Positive reinforcements involve a desirable reward such as food. The lessening of an undesirable stimulus is a negative reinforcement .

Punishments can also facilitate operant conditioning. The imposition of an undesirable event, such as the ringing of an alarm, is a positive punishment , whilst a negative punishment involve depriving someone of something that they desire.

Whilst conditioning plays an important role in learning, Skinner noted that responses to stimuli would not continue indefinitely. If a subject provides a conditioned response but does not receive the stimuli for a period of time, this conditioned behavior disappears through extinction .

The behavioral approach adopts similar scientific principles to the biological approaches. Evidence is gathered through the observation of behavior, including in experiments involving humans and animals.

However, the extent to which the observation of non-human behavior can be applied to humans is questionable. The behavioral approach is also reductionist in its emphasis on behavior, failing to account for internal activities which are more difficult to observe, such as thoughts and emotions.

Moveover, it does not explain the individual differences in behavior that can be observed amongst individuals who have experienced similar environments.

Behavioral research has many practical applications in situations where learning takes place. Its findings have advanced developments in teaching, and have led to the invention by Thomas Stampfl in 1967 of flooding (also referred to as exposure therapy ) as a means of conditioning phobics to accept stimuli which they would otherwise be fearful of.

Learn more about the behavioral approach here

Cognitive Approach

The cognitive approach takes a different view of human behavior to the behaviorists. Instead of simply observing behavior, it looks at the internal, cognitive processes that lead a person to act in a particular way.

The cognitive approach was described by Ulric Neisser in his 1967 work Cognitive Psychology , and focusses on issues such as the encoding, consolidation and retrieval of memories, emotions, perception, problem-solving and language.

Cognitive scientists often use the metaphor of the brain functioning in a similar way to a computer . Just as a computer processor retrieves data from a disk or the internet, the brain receives input signals: visual input from the eyes, sound from the ears, sensations via nerves, etc.

The brain then processes this input and responds with a particular output, such as a thought or signal to move a specific muscle. This computer analogy of the brain can be seen in many cognitive explanations of the human mind.

Cognitive psychologists consider the way in which existing knowledge about people, places, objects and events, known as schemas , influence the way in which we perceive and think about encounters in our day-to-day lives.

Schemas develop as a result of prior knowledge, and enable us to anticipate and understand the world around us. In a famous experiment known as the War of the Ghosts , psychologist Frederic Bartlett revealed the reconstructive nature of memory, with its use of schemas to recall past events ( Bartlett, 1932 ).

Whilst cognitive processes are challenging to measure, the cognitive approach uses scientific methods, including experiments which aim to reveal our internal thoughts through our actions.

In one such experiment, Loftus and Palmer (1974) presented participants with a video showing a car crash and asked questions regarding the incident, leading respondents towards a particular answer.

The results demonstrated the dynamic nature of memory recall and how present events can influence a person’s recollection of the past.

Cognitive psychology research into memory would later lead to the development of the cognitive interview , which aims to improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies . Numerous theories of memory have also been produced, including the working memory model ( Baddeley and Hitch, 1974 ) and the multi-store model ( Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968 ).

Learn more about the cognitive approach here

Humanistic Approach

After the psychodynamic approach and behaviorism, the humanistic approach is considered to be the “third force” in psychology. It emerged in reaction to previous approaches, rejecting the reductionism of human behavior to a set of stimuli and responses proposed by behaviorists.

Humanistic psychologists felt that such an approach ignored the human motivations which drive us, and the free will that we experience to make decisions independently. They believed that behaviorism focussed too heavily on quantitative research and scientific methods such as experimentation, measuring responses to produce statistics which account for groups’ behavioral tendencies, but which failed to understand the true nature of the individual .

The humanistic approach also rejected the determinism of the psychodynamic approach, with its assumption that the subconscious and its innate drives lead to a person’s behavior, rather than his or her free will .

Instead, the humanistic approach assumes that individuals possess some degree of self-control, are capable determining their own behavior. Whilst beliefs, values, morals and goals influence our actions, we possess free will and are ultimately responsible for our behavior.

Humanistic psychologists acknowledge the unique individuality of each person, and accept that subjective experiences contribute towards our personalities and our behavior.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

These range from survival needs, such as the desire for food, up to a need to achieve and reach one’s potential. Maslow termed such goals self-actualizing needs , and claimed that our behavior is driven by these needs. Obstacles hindered a person’s desire to achieve such goals can lead to them suffering.

Following humanistic principles, Carl Rogers developed client-centered therapy , and advocated that the therapist build rapport with a client, listening to and empathising with them. Rather than providing harsh criticism, Rogers proposed that the therapist exhibits unconditional positive regard for the client, regardless of their attitude.

The humanistic approach emphasises the importance of qualitative evidence over the quantitative, statistical measurements of more scientific approaches. Individuals may be interviewed and allowed to express their true feelings . Open-ended questionnaires may also be used, as may client observations and diary-keeping .

The q-sort method is another humanistic research technique.

A person is given two identical deck of cards containing self-descriptive adjectives and phrases. They are asked to sort the first deck in order of how accurately the cards describe themselves at present. They then arrange the second deck in order how they would like to be in an ideal world - their actualised self . Differences in the position of the same card between decks reveal potential opportunities for personal development.

The approach satisfies the demand for more humanistic values in Western societies and has resulted in numerous practical applications. For instance, Rogers’ methods of client-centered therapy have influenced modern-day counselling techniques. Self-help books and seminars also aim to cater for our need to achieve actualization.

In contrast to biological and psychodynamic perspectives, the humanistic approach acknowledges the individuality of human beings, along with the free will indicated by our conscious thoughts.

Yet, humanistic psychology lacks the empirical evidence that the physiological approach is able to obtain through experimentation. It also ignores the significant value of biological approaches, including the role played by genes and neurochemistry in influencing behavior.

Learn more about the humanistic approach here

The psychodynamic approach emphasises the role that the internal ‘dynamics’ of a person’s personality play on his or her behavior. These include the innate drives which we are born with, but remain unconscious of.

At times, these drives result in the potential for undesirable or socially unacceptable behavior. Therefore, the mind tries to silence desires, such as sexual drives, by repressing them. However, repression does not eliminate a person’s impulses, and internal conflicts can surface as seemingly unrelated problems later in life.

The psychodynamic approach was popularised by the writings of Austrian physician Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud’s publications, which included case studies and psychodynamic theories on issues such as the human psyche and humor, have led to him being regarded as the father of psychoanalysis.

Freud identified 5 stages of psychosexual development , during which a person derives satisfaction from a different area of the body, or erogenous zone . These stages include the oral stage during feeding, as an infant enjoys comfort from drinking milk. The later anal stage encompasses a period of toilet training.

Freud believed that if a person was prevented from fulfilling their needs at any stage, a fixation involving the relevant erogenous zone could occur. For example, if an infant is unable to feed properly during the oral stage, according to Freud’s theory, they may later develop a habit of nail biting or smoking.

Additionally, Freud proposed that the human psyche is comprised of three competing entities: the id , ego and super ego . The id drives impulsive desires, whilst the ego tempers such desires with the external realities of potentially being punished for behaving irrationally. The super ego is aware of a person’s actions on others, and is responsible for feelings of guilt and regret.

More controversially, Freud proposed that males suffer from an Oedipus complex - a desire for their mother which results in a resentment of their father. Similarly, he believed that females desire their fathers, as part of an Electra complex .

The psychodynamic approach also regards human behavior as being motivated by a desire to ‘save face’ - to preserve one’s self esteem and sense of worth. Thoughts threatening to the ego are confronted with the deployment of defense mechanisms , which include repression , sublimation and the transference of feelings from one person to another.

Freud is credited for bringing attention to the influence of subconscious thoughts and desires on the human psyche.

However, the study of such drives is impossible to objectively observe.

Instead, Freud used psychoanalysis in an effort to gain accounts of his patients’ conditions. He focussed not only on their present condition but used free association , hypnosis and regression to explore their childhood experiences, their relationships with their parents and with other family members.

Anna O: Sigmund Freud's Case History

Freud’s theories became incredibly influential at the time of their publication, but in later decades, psychologists began to questions some of his ideas. His reliance on selective aspects of case studies were the only evidence Freud used to support his theories. Theories regarding the psyche are also difficult to prove and cannot be falsified.

Focussing on subconscious thoughts and drives, psychodynamic theories also discount the significance of self-control, through conscious thoughts and free will.

Nonetheless, Freud remains an influence on proceeding generations of psychoanalysts.

A school of psychologists known as neo-Freudian school sought to further develop his theories. Carl Jung , for a time a supporter of Freud before separating from him, was one such member of this group. Jung noted the role of recurring motifs and symbols in cultural works, which he described as ‘ archetypes ’. He believed that they influence our ideas and beliefs in a similar way to memory schemas . Freud’s daughter, Anna Freudego defense mechanisms .

Learn more about the psychodynamic approach here

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Stampfl, T. G. and Levis, D. J. (1967). Essentials of implosive therapy: A learning-theory-based psychodynamic behavioral therapy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology . 72 (6). 496-503.
Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Loftus, E. F. and Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior . 13 (5). 585-589.
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What Are Psychological Theories?

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk, "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

Verywell / Colleen Tighe

5 Major Psychological Theories

Types of Theories

Psychological theories are fact-based ideas that describe a phenomenon of human behavior. These theories are based on a hypothesis , which is backed by evidence. Thus, the two key components of a psychological theory are:

It must describe a behavior.
It must make predictions about future behaviors.

The term "theory" is used with surprising frequency in everyday language. It is often used to mean a guess, hunch, or supposition. You may even hear people dismiss certain information because it is "only a theory."

But in the realm of science, a theory is not merely a guess. A theory presents a concept or idea that is testable. Scientists can test a theory through empirical research and gather evidence that supports or refutes it.

As new evidence surfaces and more research is done, a theory may be refined, modified, or even rejected if it does not fit with the latest scientific findings. The overall strength of a scientific theory hinges on its ability to explain diverse phenomena.

Some of the best-known psychological theories stem from the perspectives of various branches within psychology . There are five major types of psychological theories.

Behavioral Theories

Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, is a theory of learning based on the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning.

Advocated by famous psychologists such as John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner , behavioral theories dominated psychology during the early half of the twentieth century. Today, behavioral techniques are still widely used by therapists to help clients learn new skills and behaviors.

Cognitive Theories

Cognitive theories of psychology are focused on internal states, such as motivation, problem-solving, decision-making , thinking, and attention. Such theories strive to explain different mental processes including how the mind processes information and how our thoughts lead to certain emotions and behaviors.

Humanistic Theories

Humanistic psychology theories began to grow in popularity during the 1950s. Some of the major humanist theorists included Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow .

While earlier theories often focused on abnormal behavior and psychological problems, humanist theories about behavior instead emphasized the basic goodness of human beings.

Psychodynamic Theories

Psychodynamic theories examine the unconscious concepts that shape our emotions, attitudes, and personalities. Psychodynamic approaches seek to understand the root causes of unconscious behavior.

These theories are strongly linked with Sigmund Freud and his followers. The psychodynamic approach is seen in many Freudian claims—for instance, that our adult behaviors have their roots in our childhood experiences and that the personality is made up of three parts: the ID, the ego, and the superego.

Biological Theories

Biological theories in psychology attribute human emotion and behavior to biological causes. For instance, in the nature versus nurture debate on human behavior, the biological perspective would side with nature.

Biological theories are rooted in the ideas of Charles Darwin, who is famous for theorizing about the roles that evolution and genetics play in psychology.

Someone examining a psychological issue from a biological lens might investigate whether there are bodily injuries causing a specific type of behavior or whether the behavior was inherited.

Different Types of Psychological Theories

There are many psychology theories, but most can be categorized as one of four key types.

Developmental Theories

Theories of development provide a framework for thinking about human growth, development, and learning. If you have ever wondered about what motivates human thought and behavior, understanding these theories can provide useful insight into individuals and society.

Developmental theories provide a set of guiding principles and concepts that describe and explain human development. Some developmental theories focus on the formation of a particular quality, such as Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Other developmental theories focus on growth that happens throughout the lifespan, such as Erikson's theory of psychosocial development .

Grand Theories

Grand theories are those comprehensive ideas often proposed by major thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson , and Jean Piaget . Grand theories of development include psychoanalytic theory, learning theory , and cognitive theory .

These theories seek to explain much of human behavior, but are often considered outdated and incomplete in the face of modern research. Psychologists and researchers often use grand theories as a basis for exploration, but consider smaller theories and recent research as well.

Mini-Theories

Mini-theories describe a small, very particular aspect of development. A mini-theory might explain relatively narrow behaviors, such as how self-esteem is formed or early childhood socialization. These theories are often rooted in the ideas established by grand theories, but they do not seek to describe and explain the whole of human behavior and growth.

Emergent Theories

Emergent theories are those that have been created relatively recently. They are often formed by systematically combining various mini-theories. These theories draw on research and ideas from different disciplines but are not yet as broad or far-reaching as grand theories. The sociocultural theory proposed by Lev Vygotsky is a good example of an emergent theory of development.

The Purpose of Psychological Theories

You may find yourself questioning how necessary it is to learn about different psychology theories, especially those that are considered inaccurate or outdated.

However, theories provide valuable information about the history of psychology and the progression of thought on a particular topic. They also allow a deeper understanding of current theories. Each one helps contribute to our knowledge of the human mind and behavior.

By understanding how thinking has progressed, you can get a better idea not only of where psychology has been, but where it might be going in the future.

Studying scientific theories can improve your understanding of how scientific explanations for behavior and other phenomena in the natural world are formed, investigated, and accepted by the scientific community.

While debates continues to rage over hot topics, it is worthwhile to study science and the psychological theories that have emerged from such research, even when what is often revealed might come as a harsh or inconvenient truth.

As Carl Sagan once wrote, "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

Examples of Psychological Theories

These are a few examples of psychological theories that have maintained relevance, even today.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory is commonly represented by a pyramid, with five different types of human needs listed. From bottom to top, these needs are:

Physiological : Food, water, shelter
Safety needs : Security, resources
Belongingness and love : Intimate relationships
Esteem needs : Feeling accomplished
Self-actualization : Living your full potential creatively and spiritually

According to Maslow, these needs represent what humans require to feel fulfilled and lead productive lives. However, one must satisfy these needs from the bottom up, according to Maslow.

For instance, the most basic and most immediate needs are physiological. Once those are met, you can focus on subsequent needs like relationships and self-esteem.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget's theory of cognitive development focuses on how children learn and evolve in their understanding of the world around them. According to his theory, there are four stages children go through during cognitive development:

Sensorimotor stage : This stage lasts from birth to age two. Infants and toddlers learn about the world around them through reflexes, their five senses, and motor responses.
Preoperational stage : This stage occurs from two to seven years old. Kids start to learn how to think symbolically, but they struggle to understand the perspectives of others.
Concrete operational stage : This stage lasts from seven to 11 years old. Kids begin to think logically and are capable of reasoning from specific information to form a general principle.
Formal operational stage : This stage starts at age 12 and continues from there. This is when we begin to think in abstract terms, such as contemplating moral, philosophical, and political issues.

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

Still widely discussed today is Freud's famous psychoanalytic theory . In his theory, Freud proposed that a human personality is made up of the id, the ego, and the superego.

The id, according to Freud, is a primal component of personality. It is unconscious and desires pleasure and immediate gratification. For instance, an infant crying because they're hungry is an example of the id at work. In order to get their needs met, they respond to hunger by crying.

The ego is responsible for managing the impulses of the id so they conform to the norms of the outside world. As you age, your ego develops.

For instance, as an adult, you know that crying doesn't get you the same type of attention and care that it did as an infant. So the ego manages the id's primal impulses, while making sure your responses are appropriate for the time and place.

The superego is made up of what we internalize to be right and wrong based on what we've been taught (our conscience is part of the superego). The superego works to make our behavior acceptable and it urges the ego to make decisions based on what's idealistic (not realistic).

A Word From Verywell

Much of what we know about human thought and behavior has emerged thanks to various psychology theories. For example, behavioral theories demonstrated how conditioning can be used to promote learning. By learning more about these theories, you can gain a deeper and richer understanding of psychology's past, present, and future.

Borghi AM, Fini C. Theories and explanations in psychology . Front Psychol. 2019;10:958. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00958

Schwarzer R, Frensch P, eds. Personality, Human Development, and Culture: International Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 2 . Psychology Press.

American Psychological Association. Cognitive theories .

Brady-Amoon P, Keefe-Cooperman K. Psychology, counseling psychology, and professional counseling: Shared roots, challenges, and opportunities . Eur J Couns Psychol. 2017;6(1). doi:10.5964/ejcop.v6i1.105

American Psychological Association. Psychodynamic approach .

Giacolini T, Sabatello U. Psychoanalysis and affective neuroscience. The motivational/emotional system of aggression in human relations . Front Psychol . 2019;9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02475

D’Hooge R, Balschun D. Biological psychology . In: Runehov ALC, Oviedo L, eds. Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions . 2013:231-239. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_240

Walrath R. Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development In: Goldstein S, Naglieri JA, eds. Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development . Springer.

Gilleard C, Higgs P. Connecting life span development with the sociology of the life course: A new direction . Sociology . 2016;50(2):301-315. doi:10.1177/0038038515577906

Cvencek D, Greenwald A, Meltzoff A. Implicit measures for preschool children confirm self-esteem’s role in maintaining a balanced identity . J Exp Psychol . 2016(62):50-57. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2015.09.015

Benson J, Haith M, eds. Social and Emotional Development in Infancy and Early Childhood . Elsevier.

Sagan C. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark . Random House.

Taormina RJ, Gao JH. Maslow and the motivation hierarchy: Measuring satisfaction of the needs . American J Psychol. 2013;126(2):155-177. doi:10.5406/amerjpsyc.126.2.0155

Rabindran, Madanagopal D. Piaget’s theory and stages of cognitive development- An overview . SJAMS. 2020;8(9):2152-2157. doi:10.36347/sjams.2020.v08i09.034

Boag S. Ego, drives, and the dynamics of internal objects. Front Psychol. 2014;5:666. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666

McComas WF. The Language of Science Education . Springer Science & Business Media.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Home Essay Samples

Essay Samples on Psychology

The majority of college students who have to deal with essays about Psychology are not necessarily future specialists in Psychology or Healthcare. Just think about modern business studies or marketing where leadership qualities must be studied. The same relates to Criminology or Forensic Research assignments where the use of psychology becomes essential. It provides modern learners with a plethora of ideas that can be explored. If you are stuck and need inspiration, focus on the free psychology essay examples that we provide for you. The list of subjects that are presented ranges from the theorists to case study samples to help you understand the difference between various essay types. Remember that your introduction part will always depend on your target audience and the level of knowledge they have. It means that you should provide statistical data or study reports only to an extent that will be sufficient for your methodology or academic objectives. See how it has been done in the free samples that we offer by reading actual writing. These are only provided as templates that you should use for inspirational and educational purposes. As you compose your own Psychology essay, keep things unique and always provide relevant references.

Why Psychology Major: Understanding the Human Mind

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Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, psychological criticism.

Psychological Criticism is

a research method , a type of textual research , that literary critics use to interpret texts
a genre of discourse employed by literary critics used to share the results of their interpretive efforts.

Psychological criticism, or psychoanalytic criticism, took off in popularity in the early decades of the twentieth century. Sigmund Freud, who based some of his theories on analyses of literature, particularly Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex , is the figure primarily associated with psychological criticism, though Jacques Lacan and Carl Jung have played key roles as well. Psychological criticism frequently addresses human behavior—at the conscious and/or unconscious level—as well as the development of characters through their actions. For example, according to Freud in The Ego and the Id, a work of literature is an external expression of the author’s unconscious mind.

Key Terms: Dialectic ; Hermeneutics ; Semiotics ; Text & Intertextuality ; Tone

Foundational Questions of Psychological Criticism

What motivates the speaker or protagonist? Does the speaker or protagonist appear to be consciously or unconsciously motivated?
How do desires and wishes manifest in the text? Do they remain largely fulfilled or unfilled? How does their fulfillment, or lack thereof, affect the character’s development?
Does the text chart the emotional development of a character? How?
How do the characters in the text evoke archetypal figures such as the Great or Nurturing Mother, the Wounded Child, the Whore, the Crone, the Lover, or the Destroying Angel)?

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Clinical and Personality Assessment: An Essay in the Honor of Scott O. Lilienfeld

First Online: 01 January 2023

Cite this chapter

Martin Sellbom 4 ,
Yossef S. Ben-Porath 5 &
Robert D. Latzman 6

577 Accesses

This chapter was written in honor of the late Professor Scott O. Lilienfeld, who contributed substantially and impressively to the field of clinical personality assessment. We provide an overview of this field as well as a discussion of personality scale construction and evaluation. More specifically, we review the history of personality assessment including a brief overview of Sir Francis Galton’s work which set the stage for modern psychometrics. We further review contemporary personality assessment principles, which typically focus on the assessment of psychological constructs from either typological (e.g., categorical diagnosis) or dimensional, individual differences perspectives. We describe numerous potential sources of information should be considered in assessment practice, with a particular focus on evidence-based assessment principles. The second part of this chapter covers scale construction and evaluation. In terms of the former, we detail one deductive approach that places construct validity at the center of emphasis originally championed by Loevinger, and more recently by Clark and Watson, and a second more inductive approach that allows for the elaboration of theoretical constructs through scale construction; the latter was favored by Scott Lilienfeld throughout his career. We also discuss psychometric principles of reliability, internal structure, and validity, ending with examples derived from Lilienfeld’s published work.

Personality assessment
Scale construction
Reliability
Construct validity
Psychometrics

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For instance, let’s assume a scale with three items. Each item has a latent factor loading of 0.75, which means that the proportion of variance unaccounted for in each item is.50 ((1–0.75) 2 ). The formula for omega is the squared sum of factor loadings divided by the total variance (i.e., squared sum of factor loadings and sum of item residual variances). A three item scale would yield an omega coefficient of 0.77. A five-item scale with the same factor loadings (and thus, the same amount of measurement error associated with each item) would yield an omega coefficient of.85. See Revelle and Condon ( 2019 ) for a more sophisticated illustration.

Some scholars use principal components analysis (PCA) for this same purpose. PCA should not be confused with EFA, however, because it is not based on the common factor model as it does not parcel out shared and unique variances (Mulaik, 2010 ). Rather, PCA is a more simplistic procedure that attempts to maximize the amount of variance for which can be accounted in the indicators rather than making assumptions about causation. Some scholars nonetheless argue that PCA might be advantageous to EFA because it is more simplistic, is less prone to problematic solutions, and PCA and EFA often yield similar results. However, others (e.g., Brown., 2014 ; Fabrigar et al., 1999 ) have generally refuted these arguments as solutions are indeed dissimilar under various conditions (e.g., few indicators per factor, small communalities [i.e., amount of variance accounted for in an indicator by all factors]), and more generally, analyses should be applied based on the underlying theoretical assumptions made about associations among variables.

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v.23(Suppl 1); 2014 Jan

The psychological perspective on mental health and mental disorder research: introduction to the ROAMER work package 5 consensus document

Hans‐ulrich wittchen.

1 Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy & Center for Epidemiology and Longitudinal Studies (CELOS), Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden Germany

Susanne Knappe

Gunter schumann.

2 MRC‐SGDP Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London UK

This paper provides an overview of the theoretical framework of the Psychological Sciences' reviews and describes how improved psychological research can foster our understanding of mental health and mental disorders in a complementary way to biomedical research. Core definitions of the field and of psychological interventions and treatment in particular are provided. The work group's consensus regarding strength and weaknesses of European Union (EU) research in critical areas is summarized, highlighting the potential of a broader comprehensive “Behaviour Science programme” in forthcoming programmatic EU funding programmes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

Undoubtedly, there is increasing convergence between biomedical and psychological research on mental health and mental disorders. Both fields study the same or similar phenomena with similar approaches and methods. Thus, it is not surprising that appraisals of strength and weaknesses in both fields will often come to the same conclusions (Schumann et al ., 2013 ). Despite this continued trend of growing convergence and synergy, there are important, though sometimes subtle differences due to different traditions, theories, principles, and methods that justify a separate presentation and discussion of biomedical and psychological perspectives, highlighting specific needs and priorities that would have been neglected in a joint presentation. Consistent with this appraisal the work group (ROAMER work package 5, WP5) felt it would be helpful to define the field and arrive at consensus about its scope and definitions.

The contribution of the Psychological Sciences

Psychology can broadly be defined as an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of basic psychological functions like perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, as well as complex psychological processes such as decision‐making, volition and behaviour control, including its neural and biological underpinnings, personality, behaviour and interpersonal relationships. Psychology covers normal mental functions and behaviours and addresses the question when, why and how they can become dysfunctional. Thus, psychology covers mental health and abnormal functions and behaviours, like in mental disorders with the goal of understanding individuals, groups and social systems. Psychology has been described as a “hub science” (Cacioppo, 2007 ) with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the social sciences, natural sciences, medicine, and the humanities, such as philosophy. During the last centuries, the field of psychology has undergone several theoretical paradigm shifts (i.e. structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, behaviourism, cognitivism) and is currently typically structured in subfields of which Biological, Experimental, Developmental and Clinical Psychology have become closest to the biomedical field (Haslam and Lusher, 2011 ). But, depending on the theoretical orientation, methods and psychological fields of interest, psychological institutions and psychological research can be grouped under social sciences, the natural sciences or the biomedical sciences, etc. In fact, terms like behavioural neuroscience or cognitive‐affective neuroscience are used almost synonymously and have given rise to denote the field as Psychological Sciences. Corollaries pertaining to the Psychological Sciences include:

As compared to the biomedical field, the Psychological Sciences emphasize more explicitly a comprehensive interactional bio‐psycho‐social approach to understand and predict a broad construct of “ behaviour” that refers to neurobiological, cognitive, affective and social‐behavioural units of analyses – and should not be misunderstood as denoting simply open motor behaviour.
To this end, the relative role of biological, psychological and particularly social‐environmental variables and their dynamic interplay in promoting normal and abnormal behaviour is examined within a “dimensional” rather a “categorical” approach (diagnostic approach).
Consistent with a broad construct of behaviour, Psychological Science research uses a range of specific experimental and empirical methods (qualitative and quantitative, subjective and objective) and paradigms in human and animal research to observe causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial, environmental, psychological and biological variables.
Psychological Sciences emphasize environmental variables and a developmental perspective by appreciating the highly dynamic interplay over time, for example in psychological constructs of vulnerability – stress models as well as interactional constructs like resilience and coping to understand behaviour change and its determinants.
Based on such models, constructs and methods of the science of psychology has also provided a set of unique methods and techniques for psychological interventions (i.e. psychotherapy) with the goal of preventing, treating and rehabilitating dysfunctional behaviour and mental disorders.

Within the context of this appraisal, we define psychological treatments and interventions as clinically relevant, empirically supported interventions of any type that are based on knowledge and expertise of the Psychological Sciences by using psychological methods and means (as opposed to drugs as in psychiatry), typically by communication and/or behavioural exercises (Wittchen and Hoyer, 2011 ).

This definition includes a large group of methods and approaches, developed to address the needs of patients and groups of patients with mental disorders or mental health problems, as well as their networks of support (e.g. partner and family) and covering prevention, treatment and rehabilitation in all ages. Psychological treatments and interventions might range from highly sophisticated psychotherapy, delivered by specialized psychotherapists, to the application of specific behavioural techniques as part of a broader treatment plan (e.g. psychoeducation or motivational interviewing) by any health provider, including web‐based and e‐health applications, whenever the criteria of the earlier definition are met and efficacy and/or effectiveness is established by randomized clinical trials or equivalent designs (van der Feltz‐Cornelis and Adèr, 2000 ).

Because dysfunctional behaviour (also denoted in the literature as abnormal or clinically relevant behaviour) has large and pervasive effects on health outcomes, there is a broad consensus in the scientific community that there is a continued strong need to improve research with the goal to provide a better understanding of (a) the mechanisms underlying adaptive and dysfunctional behaviour, (b) the mechanisms of behaviour change with regard to (c) normal‐adaptive healthy as well as (d) dysfunctional and clinically significant behaviours as in mental disorders. Towards this goal the work group sees the strong need to adopt a comprehensive “Science of Behaviour” programme, in order to make substantial progress in research of mental health, mental disorders also reflected in substantial improvements in public health as well as savings in healthcare costs (NIH, 2009 ).

It should be noted that we did not work specifically on substance use disorders because of the existence of another European research programme dealing exlusively with this topic ( http://www.alicerap.eu ).

Core issues and topics from a Psychological Science perspective

The subsequent papers are position papers by members of the “roadmap for mental health research in Europe” –initiative (ROAMER) work package 5 (Haro et al ., 2014 ). They address selected and interrelated core areas that are considered to be of particular relevance for an improved future research agenda on mental health. Based on their expertise they were invited as part of the ROAMER discussion process to jointly contribute to a birds‐eye view on important issues in mental health and mental disorder research from a Psychological Science perspective. The choice of topics was selective, though based on prior discussions and consensus of the ROAMER expert work group on “Psychological Research and Treatments”. 1 Their accounts should not be regarded as state‐of‐the‐art reviews. Rather, the aim is to highlight the unique contributions of psychology by these position papers, complementing the contributions of the biomedical field, avoiding replication.

In the first contribution (Wittchen et al ., 2014 ) several fundamental barriers to progress in the area of basic and applied research on behaviour and behaviour change are addressed. A general lack of understanding the basic mechanisms of behaviour, behaviour change as well as moderators and mediators of behaviour in the context of interventions is concluded, highlighting the strong need of respective intensified research. Common “health risk behaviours” are taken as examples to specify what type of research is needed to identify mechanisms and determinants of behaviour initiation, maintenance and behaviour change as well as the critical trajectories between them to provide ultimately also a better understanding of the causes and the treatment of mental disorders. The paper also addresses the question to what degree mechanisms relevant for specific disorders or health risk behaviours are the same, or different across disorders and conditions, and to what degree individual variation (genetic, or individual capacities such as “self‐regulation”), stress and emotion play a role. This discussion is linked to the specific context of psychotherapy research, providing examples how this perspective helps to identify core ingredients and mechanisms of behaviour change.

The position paper by Goschke ( 2014 ) emphasizes the work group's consensus that only improved research of basic and more complex normal and dysfunctional psychological functions and processes, including their neural underpinnings and social contexts, will ultimately allow us to improve our understanding of normative and non‐normative behaviours (i.e. mental disorders), their developmental pathways and processes. This paper describes in greater detail how we might advance in this direction by focusing on “Functions and dysfunctions of cognitive control and decision‐making as transdiagnostic core mechanisms in mental disorders”.

Emmelkamp et al . ( 2014 ) specifically address various domains of clinical research and “state of the art” psychotherapy research in particular. They focus largely on the currently best established, though imperfect, first‐line treatment for many disorders and how to advance research on components, mechanism and effectiveness research. Four topical domains are highlighted in particular that are characterized by partly different research needs. Namely: (a) psychological models and paradigms of mental disorders from a cognitive perspective, (b) methodological issues of improved psychotherapy research, (c) the special needs in psychotherapy of children and adolescents, and (d) the incorporation of e‐health innovations.

The final paper (Fava et al ., 2014 ) provides a methodological framework for improved research on comorbidity and discusses perspectives on the future clinical research agenda within this context.

Conclusions on strengths and weaknesses

Overall, the position papers on psychological perspectives converge on several strengths of the European research field: i.e. a substantial body of expertise and knowledge in both basic and clinical research, strong and increasingly more intimate collaborative ties to the biomedical field, and a broader coverage of mental health issues as opposed to mental disorder research in the biomedical field (Wittchen et al ., 2014 ; Goschke et al ., 2014 ; Emmelkamp et al ., 2014 ; Fava et al ., 2014 ).

At the same time, they also converge on several major general weaknesses, characteristic not only for Europe but worldwide, namely: (a) the fragmentation of research activities in many areas, (b) the lack of coordination and synergy in European research in this field, and (c) the lack of coordinated long‐term programmes with regard to a broader “Science of Behaviour” perspective as the fundamental framework.

On the structural level the work group highlights that there are remarkable gaps in our knowledge regarding the situation of research on psychological treatments and interventions in Europe. In fact – and despite some coordinated EU‐efforts in this domain – it is impossible to determine the degree to which psychological treatments are applied in the EU countries, where and what kind of research and service delivery programmes are in place and how they are integrated into the wider network of mental health care infrastructure. As a result, Europe lacks even the most basic prerequisites for an evidence‐based mental health research policy in this field.

In terms of specific gaps and needs for future research the authors point out marked deficits and provide suggestions on advances needed to meet these research needs. A short summary of these suggestions is given in Table 1 . In sum, the position papers emphasize to varying degrees that a combined approach, appreciating traditional diagnostic classificatory models as well as a facet‐oriented, dimensional multi‐level domain approach by functions and elements of behaviour might be the best way forward. Overall, there seems to be consensus that the field would profit significantly from a concerted programme of the “Science of Behaviour Change”.

Goals and needs for future research in Psychological Science

Declaration of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme Project ROAMER (FP7‐HEALTH‐2011/No 282586).

This paper has been prepared by the authors in the context of the ROAMER project (work package 5, led by Hans‐Ulrich Wittchen). The statements and the position of the paper are made by the authors, based on the work group discussions and thus they reflect an intermediate outcome of the work group. They should not be considered as an official statement of the ROAMER project or as a final outcome or conclusion of the overall programme.

The position papers were generated as part of the activities of a group of leading European experts on psychological research and intervention, in order to provide an assessment of the state‐of‐the‐art of research in different domains, identifying major advances and promising methods and pointing out gaps and problems which ought to be addressed in future research (see Appendix). A similar critical appraisal with partly similar conclusions is concurrently provided elsewhere (Schumann et al ., 2013 ) by the ROAMER work group “Biomedical research”. Experts in both work groups have been selected for their academic excellence and for their competence in the different units of analysis needed to comprehensively characterize particular symptom domains. Their contributions do not aim to be systematic reviews of the field but rather provide a well‐informed opinion of the authors involved. They also do not represent official statements of the ROAMER consortium, but are meant to inform the discussion on psychological research and intervention in mental disorders among interested stakeholders, including researchers, clinicians and funding bodies. Recommendations made in this issue will undergo a discussion and selection process within the ROAMER consortium, and contribute to a final roadmap, which integrates all aspects of mental health research. We thus hope to provide an informed and comprehensive overview of the current state of psychological research in mental health, as well as the challenges and advances ahead of us.

Table A1 ROAMER work package 5 authors and experts (in alphabetical order by last name)

1 Core experts of the ROAMER work package on Psychological Research and Treatments are Drs Arnoud Arntz, Francesc Colom, Pim Cuijpers, Tim Dalgleish, Daniel David, Giovanni A. Fava, Arne Holte, Uwe Koch‐Gromus, Ilse Kryspin‐Exner, Wolfgang Lutz, and Hans‐Ulrich Wittchen. They were supported by dozens of advisors and consultants.

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Seven Approaches To Psychology Essay Example

Psychology is a complex field of study of human behavior and mental processes. It cannot be studied in one certain way, thus, there are seven contemporary approaches to psychology: humanistic, evolutionary, psychodynamic, sociocultural, biological, behavioral, and cognitive. Each approach studies psychology on different levels, providing different views on the causes behind specific behaviors and mental processes.

The first approach, the humanistic approach, focuses on an individual’s positive qualities, ability and capacity for growth, and their free will. In this approach, it is believed that humans have the ability to be in control of their everyday lives rather than the environment being in control. Additionally, humans are motivated by the idea of self-actualization, the ability to reach their full potential. For example, I had friends who placed racial stereotypes upon me, making me feel bad about being my ethnicity. I decided to cut ties with these people to focus on who I am rather than who I could be. I should be proud of my ethnicity, personality, and characteristics without worrying if I will be accepted into a particular group. This demonstrates aspects of the humanistic approach as I am focusing on myself and my growth as a person. The decision I made was of my free will in order to grow and become a better individual who focuses more on my self-worth rather than what I am expected to be.

The evolutionary approach to psychology is centered around the ideas of adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection to explain why we act the way we do. As humans, we have adapted to the changes in the environment, both biologically and mentally. The evolution of humans has caused our decision making, emotions, physical features, and mating patterns to change with the development of technology and changes in society. It also deals with Charles Darwin’s natural selection, the idea that the traits we have are a result of our ancestors adapting in order to survive in an environment. Taking a look at a real-life application, I am scared of spiders. Ever since I was a child, I have hated the way spiders crawled and I was always scared that they would crawl on me and bite me. I did not learn to be scared of spiders. The idea was already within my understanding, passed down from my ancestors who recognized them as poisonous and deadly animals, demonstrating the evolution of humans and natural selection. Thus, some of my behaviors, especially those related to fear and reactions, are due to the information that has been passed on by previous generations as a form of survival and adaptation to the environment.

Some information resides in the unconscious part of the mind, representing the psychodynamic approach. This information would include sexual desires and aggressive impulses. The psychodynamic approach also emphasizes the concept that childhood experiences contribute to adult behavior, as developed by Sigmund Freud. The unconscious thoughts and the childhood experiences influence the behavior, thoughts, and feelings a person may have. In my case, I grew up in a strict household where good grades were everything. As a result, I am very conscious of getting good grades in school, which is both a good and bad thing. Good in that I will put in a lot of effort in my classes, bad in that I could become overly-conscious in maintaining a good grade. This would be an example of the psychodynamic approach because my experiences during my childhood has shaped my behavior towards my educational successes. My thought that I should always do well has directly affected my behavior and emotions towards my education while also shaping my determined personality. Unconscious, underlying thoughts and the development of concepts during childhood has helped to define the actions and feelings I have today.

Quite similar to the psychodynamic approach is the sociocultural approach. This approach outlines the social and cultural environments that affect an individual’s behavior. Exposure to different environments and ideas can shape one’s outlook on the world, along with how they respond to certain interactions. People of different cultures will often disagree in this respect as the values of a country, ethnicity, or generation will influence how they behave and feel. In view of this, cross-cultural research compares individuals from different countries to observe the alignment or lack of alignment in their psychological qualities. Taking for example, I heavily engage in the use of technology in my everyday life, whether it be for leisure entertainment or problem-solving. The convenience of technology has made it easier to communicate and learn without as much effort as was previously needed. Everyday use of technology has become a big part of my generation’s culture, influencing my behaviors and displaying the sociocultural approach. Thus, I prefer electronic resources rather than physical, a short reading over lengthy, and online interactions over in-person ones. The advancement of technology has become a part of my culture, shaping how I behave in particular environments as well as my mental processes for acquiring knowledge.

The biological approach of psychology, however, looks at behavior and mental processes as a result of occurrences within the body, especially in the brain and the nervous system, rather than a result of external factors. With this approach, psychological characteristics of an individual are identified and defined by changes in the body such as the heart racing when the person is exposed to a tense environment. There is also the idea that some behaviors are inherited through genes passed from parent to child. Furthermore, neuroscience is known as a core part of the biological approach, emphasizing that thoughts, behavior, and emotion are central to the brain and nervous system. As the electrical impulses of information travel from our body to our brain for processing, we are able to react and behave in a certain way. In my case, I have Tourette's syndrome. This causes me to make involuntary movements and sounds, commonly known as “ticks”, due to an issue in the communication of nerve cells in my brain. Thus, my unique behavior is defined by my Tourette’s syndrome, a good example of the biological approach. My behavior is not caused by any external factors such as human interaction or childhood experiences, it is due to an internal, biological happening with my nerve cells and neurotransmitters that are not functioning normally.

The behavioral approach has a very contrasting view, focusing solely on the observable behaviors of an individual. As adopted by behaviorists B.F. Skinner and John B. Watson, this approach is centered around what can be seen, not what cannot be seen. It also emphasizes how we learn when exposed to various environments. Conditioning, reinforcement, and punishment all play a factor in what behaviors an individual takes on. This can be seen in the way I have learned to wash my dishes almost immediately after I use them. In the past, I would leave my dish out, but after being scolded for not cleaning up after myself by my parents, I have been diligent in washing my dishes. This would be an example of negative reinforcement as I have increased my behavior of washing dishes in order to not endure the scolding of my parents. In the behavioral approach, behavior and mental processes are analyzed through what is seen. Thus, my change in behavior is an example of how I have learned to behave after eating and can be actively seen by others as I wash the dishes. The behavioral approach is very unique in this observational way that it studies psychology through our responses to the environment.

Lastly, the cognitive approach. This approach deals with the memory, planning, and problem solving of the mind. Instead of the behavior being dictated solely by the environment, behavior is within the control of mental processes. Information stored within the mind helps in assessing what actions must be taken in certain situations. This information would include information that is available in the environment along with what has already been learned through previous experience. For instance, when I go shopping, I look for things I need at my house. Despite this, I always find various products that are outside of what I am actually looking for. Thus, I try to be rational and ask myself, “Do I really need this?” Decision making is a big part of the cognitive approach as it is distinguishing the available options from each other, providing reasoning for each through logic and what we know. This displays the cognitive approach in that I think about and process the information in front of me, making judgments of what I need before I make a final decision. The connection of the ideas I am aware of and the behaviors I engage in serve as an example of the cognitive approach.

The seven contemporary approaches to psychology each take on different perspectives in why particular behaviors and mental processes are present. Some approaches deal with the internal happenings of the brain and mind to explain behaviors, while others focus on what can be seen and how we act in reaction to certain environments. Each approach provides different interpretations of behavior, therefore providing different, yet valuable, insights.

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The Five Psychological Approaches Essay

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Psychology , Learning , Education , Environment , Environmental Issues , Computers , Internet , Brain

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Published: 11/14/2019

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Introduction

Over the years, psychology has become an important science, alongside more traditional sciences such as chemistry and physics. Psychology is “the study of the mind and behavior. The discipline embraces all aspects of the human experience — from the functions of the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged. In every conceivable setting from scientific research centers to mental health care services, "the understanding of behavior" is the enterprise of psychologists” (APA).

There are various approaches to psychology, namely behavioural, cognitive, humanist, psychoanalytic and biological. The approaches vary widely, and have varied in popularity at different points in history.

Behavioural Approach

Behaviourists see all behaviours as responses to stimuli. They hold the view that what people do is determined by the environment in which they are based. According to behaviourists, the environment provides a stimulus to the person, and therefore such stimuli teach the person who to respond to future stimuli as they progress through their lives (Sammons).

Behaviourists are different to all other types of psychologists in that they argue that speculation regarding internal mental processes is unrequired in order to explain behaviour. Instead, they contest, it is sufficient to simply know which stimuli cause which responses.

Behaviourists also contend that humans are born with just a select few innate reflexes, and that all complex behaviours have to be learned through gradual contact with their environment.

Interestingly, they also argue that humans learn in an identical manner as other animals, as learning processes are the same across all species (Sammons).

The fundamental strengths of the behaviourist approach stem from the methods of study it employs. Research carried out by behaviourists is usually reliable, as they are diligent about objectivity, variable controls and accurate measurements. Moreover, it was the behaviourists that introduced the scientific method of study into the science of psychology.

Nevertheless, the downside of these precise methods is that it can cause behaviour to be studied under artificial conditions which differ widely to normal everyday life. Furthermore, behaviourists tend to use animals as their research subjects. This is a point of conflict for many critiques as there are genetic influences on the learning of different animal species, based on their histories within evolution. For example, rats can be conditioned to react to tastes, but they cannot be conditioned to react to smells (Sammons). This type of discrepancy means that cross-species generalisations should be made carefully, a fact which many behaviourists do not consider important.

A larger criticism of behaviourism is that it fails to take into account the influence that mental processes have on learning. According to behaviourism, people only learn as a direct result of their experiences. Conversely, however, much research by other types of psychologists supports the notion that people can learn from observing the behaviour of others.

Despite the criticisms, behaviourism has offered practical solutions to many problems regarding humans. Operant conditioning, for example, has been shown as a productive method of revising the behaviour of people who find it difficult to learn in more traditional ways.

Furthermore, many individuals with phobias have been significantly helped by behaviour therapies such as systematic desensitization (Sammons).

Cognitive Approach

Cognitive psychologists uphold the view that behaviour results from information processing (Cognitive). By using this term, cognitive psychologists are comparing human minds with computers. This is actually sensible as there are marked similarities between minds and computers. For example, “both have inputs, outputs, memory stores and a limited capacity for how much information they can process at any one time” (Cognitive).

The behaviour of a computer is decided by how it has been programmed and what information has been fed into it. Likewise, according to cognitive psychologists, the behaviour of a person is decided by the information that has been available to them within their environment, the methods with which they have learned to process the information, and the type of brain the person has and, therefore, their capacity for taking in the information.

A strength of the cognitive approach is the use of scientific methods of study, somewhat like the behaviourist approach. However, also similarly to the behaviourists, some other psychologists view the experimental research as too unrealistic and not like normal everyday situations.

The cognitive approach tackles some behaviourist shortfalls by providing an explanation, and giving credit to, the internal processes that influence people’s behaviour; this has been achieved largely through the computer metaphor. However, a criticism of the approach is that the dependence and use of the computer metaphor has caused cognitive psychologists to ignore the effect of emotions on human thinking and behaviour. It is also arguable that the information processing concepts that cognitive psychologists use fail to take into account the vast differences between humans in how they behave and think. Furthermore, the cognitive approach seems to neglect scientific facts about brain function and genetic influence on behaviour.

Nevertheless, the cognitive approach has contributed positively to the development of treating psychological disorders. Cognitive therapies are some of the most successful methods of treating illnesses such as depression (Cognitive).

Humanistic Approach

The Humanistic Approach stresses the study of the person as a whole. Humanistic psychologists study the behaviour of humans by looking through the eyes of the observer and by looking through the eyes of the subject as well. Humanistic psychologists view a person’s behaviour as being inextricably linked to his internal feelings and his image of self (Humanism).

Humanistic psychologists assume that phenomenology is key and that humans unequivocally possess free will. The humanistic term for the use of free will is Personal Agency (Humanism). Humanists also believe that people are fundamentally good, and that they have an inbuilt desire to improve themselves and the world.

Both Rogers and Maslow viewed personal growth and improvement as a motive that is basic and innate to humans. A useful term in Humanism is self-actualisation, which refers to “psychological growth, fulfilment and satisfaction in life” (Humanism).

Unlike the behaviourist and cognitive approaches, Humanism discards scientific methodology such as experiments. Instead, humanistic psychologists tend to use qualitative research methods. Examples of such methods are open-ended questionnaires, unstructured observations and unstructured interviews. Qualitative research is especially useful when studying one individual and to gain complex information about how a person thinks or feels.

Unlike behaviourists, humanists see humans as profoundly different from other species of the animal kingdom, primarily for the reason that humans are conscious and are “capable of thought, reason and language” (Humanism). Humanistic psychologists believe that research involving animals is practically useless in learning about humans. Furthermore, Humanistic psychologists do not use scientific approaches in their research as they consider it inadequate in studying the depth of conscious experience.

Critics of the humanist approach disapprove of the seeming absence of objectivity and precision in their methods. Some psychologists view the humanistic methods as “unscientific, vague and open to bias and their attempt to ‘get inside’ other people’s way of perceiving the world as misguided and quite possibly pointless” (Humanistic).

Other critics disagree with the positive light with which humanists view human nature. The humanist approach claims that people are inherently good, but they do not explain the evil that appears to exist in the world, and the unacceptable things that people do to each other.

Psychoanalytic Approach

Sigmund Freud was the creator of psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic psychological approach. This perspective stressed the impact of the unconscious mind on a person’s behaviour. Freud claimed that the human mind was made up of three basic elements; these were the Id, the Ego and the Superego (Psychoanalytic).

The Id referred to the part of a personality which is comprised of “unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs and desires” (Psychoanalytic). Freud described the Ego as the part of the personality that controls and maintains a balance between the Id and the Superego. The Superego is the part that is made up of a person’s internalized ideals that have been learned from other people and from the environment.

A large number of Freud's observations and theories stemmed from clinical cases and case studies (Psychoanalytic). While these methods provided him with a depth of information, they also meant that generalising any findings to a larger number of people was problematic. Some critics believe that Freud’s theory, due to its nature, was impossible to prove wrong and was therefore considered unscientific.

Furthermore, some psychologists argued that Freud’s methods were unscientific because his theory was based on studying atypical participants, by using case study methods he was not allowing his results to be objective and therefore, could be biased.

Nevertheless, Freud’s theories dramatically altered how we perceive the human mind and behaviour, and the scientist was responsible for changing psychology and culture forever. Specifically, psychoanalysis has had a huge influence on a vast array of topics.

Biological Approach

Biological approach psychologists believe that human behaviour and experiences are direct results of nervous system activity. Therefore, according to this approach, the things that a person feels, says and does are all caused by “electrochemical events occurring within and between the neurones that make up their nervous system, particular those in the brain” (Biological). A large number of biopsychologists agree that as a person’s genes determines the development of their brain, that person’s behaviour may have genetic influences. Also, due to an individual’s genes having been inherited as a result of evolution, many biopsychologists consider that evolution may contain answers and explanations for certain characteristics, both behavioural and psychological (Biological).

There are various ways in which to study the involvement of biological processes in behaviour, but researchers tend to prefer methods which are “quantitative, objective and well controlled because these are most likely to produce valid scientific evidence” (Biological).

Many different types of brain scanning technology can be useful in studying the structure and functions of a person’s brain. Examples of such technology are PET and MRI. Additionally, the nervous system can be looked at by surgically manipulating a person’s brain. Such research may be carried out on animals, as biopsychologists consider the human nervous system as similar to other mammals.

The biological approach uses methods which are reliable, valid and scientific. This credibility is further boosted by the approach’s emphasis on “objectively observable phenomena rather than subjective experiences” (Biological). Most psychologists perceive this as a strength, but some suggest that biopsychologists fail to take into account a person’s experiences, and how this affects their thoughts and behaviour.

Another criticism of the biological approach is its tendency to use animals as study participants in order to draw conclusions about human behaviour. As each animal species’ nervous system reflects its evolutionary history, it can be dangerous to generalise across species.

A significant objection to the biological approach is that is concentrates on genetic and biological impacts on human behaviour, while seeming to ignore social and cultural influences.

Despite the criticisms, the biological approach has positively contributed to our perception of behavioural processes. Furthermore, it has contributed to many other fields such as surgery and medicine. Biological psychologists have offered credible explanations for various psychological disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, and many drug therapies for such illnesses have changed many people’s lives for the better.

Although very different from one another, all five approaches have offered important insights and developments to both the science of psychology and to society. When studying the approaches it is important to keep perspective of the wider context surrounding them.

Works Cited

American Psychological Association. Web. 25 May. 2011. http://www.apa.org/support/about/apa/psychology.aspx#answer “Biological Approach: The Basics.” Approaches to Psychology. Web. 25 May. 2011.

http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/approaches/AS_AQB_approaches_Bio psychologyBasics.pdf “Humanism.” Simple Psychology. Web. 25 May. 2011. http://www.simplypsychology.org/humanistic.html “Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychology.” About Psychology. Web. 25 May. 2011. http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/psychodynamic.htm Sammons, A. “The Behaviourist Approach: The Basics.” Approaches to Psychology. Web. 24 May. 2011. http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/approaches/AS_AQB_approaches_Beh aviourismBasics.pdf Sammons, A. “The Cognitive Approach: The Basics.” Approaches to Psychology. Web. 24 May. 2011. http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/approaches/AS_AQB_approaches_Cog nitiveBasics.pdf Sammons, A. “Humanistic Approach: The Basics.” Approaches to Psychology. Web. 25 May. 2011. http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/approaches/AS_AQB_approaches_Hu manisticBasics.pdf

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The Psychological Approaches Essay Example. 📌Category: Psychologist, Psychology: 📌Words: 1028: 📌Pages: 4: 📌Published: 03 June 2022 ... You might be wondering why there are so many different psychology approaches and whether one is correct, and the others are incorrect. Most psychologists agree that no single approach is correct ...
What are the major approaches to psychology
The last approach to psychology is the Cross-cultural approach. The objective of this approach is to study and analyze the influences that our cultural and ethnic background on psychological functioning; as example, the rates of depression in countries all around the world are different because of the cultural and ethnic differences between ...
Major perspectives within psychology
Major perspectives within psychology. Psychology is a discipline divided into many contrasting approaches, each attempting to explain human behaviour through varying methods and theories. Cognitivism and behaviourism are two perspectives within psychology that have had great influence, not only upon the subsequent methods and philosophy within ...
The philosophical bases of counselling psychology.
The aim of this essay is to critically examine the philosophical bases of counselling psychology. The essay will start by exploring the philosophical traditions of counselling psychology. The essay will then attempt to reflect on the values of the profession, as well as its stance in relation to the scientist-practitioner and reflective-practitioner models. Finally, the author will reflect on ...
Psychological Criticism
Psychological Criticism is . a research method, a type of textual research, that literary critics use to interpret texts; a genre of discourse employed by literary critics used to share the results of their interpretive efforts.; Psychological criticism, or psychoanalytic criticism, took off in popularity in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Two psychological approaches/perspectives
This essay is going to outline two of the five approaches which are psychodynamic and cognitive approaches. The Psychodynamic approach was mainly initiated by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and he explained behaviour in terms of unconscious drives and the dynamics of the id, ego and superego. However the cognitive approach was developed by Piaget in ...
Clinical and Personality Assessment: An Essay in the Honor ...
Evidence-based scale construction is at the heart of evidence-based psychological assessment. Indeed, as noted by Clark and Watson (), measurement is fundamental in science as it is only with sound measurement that one can make meaningful inferences critical to clinical utility.In this section, we review two contemporary approaches to scale construction, including one deductive approach that ...
The psychological perspective on mental health and mental disorder
The subsequent papers are position papers by members of the "roadmap for mental health research in Europe" -initiative (ROAMER) work package 5 (Haro et al., 2014). They address selected and interrelated core areas that are considered to be of particular relevance for an improved future research agenda on mental health.
Psychology A Level paper 2 essay plans
Approaches. Discuss the behaviourist approach in psychology. (16 marks) A - The basic assumption of the behaviourist approach is that all behaviour is learnt from the environment, and that we are born with a blank slate and learn through association of stimulus responses, behaving similarly to animals.- Classical conditioning - Pavlov conditioned dogs to associate the sound of a bell (neutral ...
Seven Approaches To Psychology Essay Example
Seven Approaches To Psychology Essay Example. 📌Category: Psychology: 📌Words: 1395: 📌Pages: 6: 📌Published: 28 January 2022: Psychology is a complex field of study of human behavior and mental processes. It cannot be studied in one certain way, thus, there are seven contemporary approaches to psychology: humanistic, evolutionary ...
Theoretical Approaches In Psychology
Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. This essay will explore three psychological approaches. Further comparison and contrast made from assumptions about human behaviour from the selected three approaches will be deeply discussed throughout the whole essay. Modern psychology branches out into several approaches ...
The Five Psychological Approaches Essay
In every conceivable setting from scientific research centers to mental health care services, "the understanding of behavior" is the enterprise of psychologists" (APA). There are various approaches to psychology, namely behavioural, cognitive, humanist, psychoanalytic and biological. The approaches vary widely, and have varied in popularity ...
Essay Plans Approaches Paper 2 Section A The origins of psychology
Outline and evaluate Wundt's role in the emergence of psychology as a science (8) Para 1 → Outline: Wundt and introspection (AO1) Wundt - father of psychology His work marked beginning of scientific psychology, distinct from philosophy He set up the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in the 1870s Promoted the use of ...
Psychological Perspectives in Cuckoo's Nest Free Essay Example
The interplay of biological, behavioral, cognitive, sociocultural, psychodynamic, and humanistic perspectives creates a nuanced portrayal of mental health, challenging readers to reflect on the broader implications of psychological interventions. As society continues to grapple with evolving perspectives on mental health, Kesey's novel remains ...
An Exploration Of The Person Centred Approach
An Exploration Of The Person Centred Approach. Ever since its initial outline by the American psychologist Carl Rogers in his 1951 publication "Client Centred Therapy: Its current Practice, Implications and Theory", the Person Centred Approach has attracted much attention, both positive and negative, from academics and practitioners worldwide.

How to Write a Psychology Essay

Components of a Good Essay

Knowledge and Understanding

Critical Evaluation

Methodological evaluation of research

Compare or contrast different theories

Debates or perspectives

What are the ethical issues of the research?

Gender bias

Cultural bias

Animal Research

The PEC System

For Example

Using Research Studies in your Essays

Writing an Introduction

Writing a Conclusion

The Importance of Flow

Referencing

Differences Between Psychological Approaches Essay

Explanations of Intellectual and Moral Development

Reference List

36 What Is Psychological Criticism?

Excerpts from Psychological Criticism Scholarship

From “First Lecture” in A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud (1920)

Excerpts from “The Œdipus-Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet’s Mystery: A Study in Motive” by Ernest Jones (1910)

Introduction to “Ophelia’s Desire” by James Marino (2017)

Beyond Freud: Applying Psychological Theories to Literary Texts

The Limitations of Psychological Criticism

Further Reading

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Approaches in Psychology

Psychodynamic Approach

Physiological Approach (Biological)

Evolutionary Approach

Humanistic Approach

Which Archetype Are You?

Are You Angry?

Windows to the Soul

Are You Stressed?

Attachment & Relationships

Memory Like A Goldfish?

31 Defense Mechanisms

Slave To Your Role?

Are You Fixated?

Interpret Your Dreams

How to Read Body Language

How to Beat Stress and Succeed in Exams

Cultural Influences In Psychology

Extreme Phobias

I Hear Red. I Taste 5.

When Experiments Just Aren't Enough

Think Rationally.

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What Are Psychological Theories?

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Developmental Theories

Grand Theories

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The Purpose of Psychological Theories

Examples of Psychological Theories

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

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Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

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